Tahiti 80 - Puzzle

Black Vinyl

Released by Human Sounds

This French quartet, who borrowed their name from a cheesy souvenir T-shirt, dress up horn- and string-swept '60s pop bliss in a tie-dyed T-shirt and black leather jacket. With their intricate melding of woozy, reverberating guitars, jangling acoustics, sitar, mellotron, breathy, effortless vocals, and almost ridiculously pleasant melodies, a listener would likely place them among their contemporary Brit pop torch-bearers Supergrass or Super Furry Animals (further, lead singer Xavier Boyer's French accent is nearly undetectable). But what gives them away is that seemingly requisite French tendency to leave no edge unsmoothed. Like their techno counterparts Air, Tahiti 80's production is aerated, refined, and simply perfect like a silky mousse. Puzzle is carefree pop at its most elegant and substantive. Boyer's proclaimed adoration of the Kinks is evidenced in the more guitar-crunched tracks like the title track and "Hey Joe," and the charming "Mr. Davies" is a reverent tribute to Ray himself. In it, he sings, "He's considered a songwriter, and I am not--at this time." Au contraire, Mr. Boyer, you are an exquisite songwriter indeed. --Beth Massa.