Lali Puna, Our Inventions
Featured Album
A pitch-perfect exemplar of indietronica
Along with peers The Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio and Ms. John Soda, Lali Puna are one of the progenitors of a crackly, diffuse brand of electronic music sometimes called "indietronica" — a sepia-toned blend of indie-pop craft, glitchy textures and bookish diffidence. On their previous album, 2004's Faking The Books, the group (Valerie Trebeljahr, Markus Acher, Christoph Brandner and Chistian Heié) considerably upped the rock quotient of this mix, but on Our Inventions Lali Puna has returned to the melancholy melodies and subdued organic electronics of old. It may be over-reading things a bit to suggest that this is the result of this being the first album since Trebeljahr became a parent, but it's hard to deny that many of the tracks have a pronounced lullaby feel to them (especially "Safe Tomorrow", "Rest Your Head" and the twinkle, twinkle keyboards of "Hostile To Me"). The gentle float and breathy melodies of Our Inventions masks darker intentions, though, and eventually lyrics like "Their kingdom's gone/ Just ruins and plain desert" reveal themselves from the cottony hum. It's been a long time since indietronica has been capable of genuine surprise, and Our Inventions, accordingly, contains few, but it is nevertheless a pitch-perfect exemplar of the style.
