From the first downbeat, Applied Communications’ Africa Baby, Yeah Yeah Yeah is impossible to ignore. A hilarious send-up of laptop glitch and old-school rap — like Cex in a goofy mood — this album seems like the hip-hop version of They Might Be Giants or, in a way, even the first Violent Femmes album. It’s a party jam for geeks. It’s indie, it’s pop, it’s a cut-and-paste mishmash of electro insanity. Songs like “Boy for Sale” and “Kangaroo” do a great job of crossing Paul’s Boutique with Japanese Shibuya-kei, Momus (albeit rapping), and some of the quirky, lo-fi vocals of Ninja Tune’s Fog. “Ocean! Ocean! Ocean!” even mixes Mancini strings, laptop beats, and rhymes about Target. While not as innovative as immediately mind-blowing artists like the Streets and Dizzee Rascal, one-man band Max Wood is doing his own thing entirely, without compromise, without even pretending to care what listeners think. And that is pretty punk rock, which adds another layer to the already dense and stunningly awkward pop-rap record. – Charles Spano
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