Jun 27 2008 5:34 pm,
3.0
Arms
‘Kids Aflame’
(Melodic)
Over yonder in the land of yellow taxis and bagels known as
New York is Mr. Todd Goldstein, aka Arms. Sporting a nasal croon a la Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, he makes wispy ditties and chirpy melodies. Like an across the pond Jeremy Warmsley, ‘Kids Aflame’ is an album of eccentric musings (“you and me we ate time”), meandering thoughts and peculiar titles (‘Sabretooth Typist’, anyone?). Packed full of ambient loveliness, ‘Whirring’ is shoegaze gone merry, whilst ‘Tiger Tamer’ recalls Bright Eyes at their least depressive. With all instruments played by Goldstein, recorded on one mic in his
Brooklyn bedroom and mixed on a laptop, lo-fi has never been such an understatement. Sure to make bookish bespectacled indiefolk everywhere swoon.
Sophie Thomsett
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