Review of Supercute! from Disclaimer by Chris Willie Williams

Some of the greatest minds in the public eye know the importance of having a soundbite-ready gimmick to make their wares palatable. David Mamet's secret to directing a good film? "Keep it simple, stupid." James Carville's formula for running a successful political campaign? "It's the economy, stupid." Mike Langlie's recipe for his band Twink? "A toy surprise in every song!" (I assume the "stupid" is implied.) In the case of Twink, however, such a reductive description does Langlie a bit of a disservice, because although his second album will satisfy those who are looking for music as cuddly and goofy as its cover and title suggest — his instrument of choice is a toy piano, though he gets plenty of help from other musicians throughout — Supercute! is nowhere near as unbearably cloying as you might think.

Even at his silliest, Langlie never lets the childish connotation of his jingly sounds supercede the songs' respective identities. "Barnstorming," for instance, backs his toy piano with samples of farm animals serving as percussion, but rather than choking on its own calculated whimsy like, say, The Music Tapes, the song really is carefully assembled, with the animal noises looped and layered with the precision of a Prefuse 73 beat, and with two distinct, hooky sections no less (the latter of which is actually kind of haunting)! Elsewhere, "Knick Knack" packs enough of a synthesized punch to recall Holiday-era Magnetic Fields, "Cobweb Collector" is a surprisingly dark ambient interlude, and "Rubbernecker" is a lo-fi faux raga that suggests a charmed collaboration between Camper Van Beethoven and Raymond Scott. (I should also emphasize that the toy piano doesn't ground all the tracks here; I'd say it plays a prominent role in roughly half the songs, unless it's so strangely manipulated that I can't even identify the instrument on those other songs. And the exceptions, like the delicate flute-and-cello piece "Runaway Shadow," are every bit as enticing.)

The point I'm trying to make is that although the presence of so many toy instruments may make Twink sound like a toss-off novelty act on paper, Supercute! is just proof (like Self's similarly impressive Gizmodgery) that great musicians can coax eclectic, emotional, and fun beauty from anything that makes noise, if you're open to hearing it. And Twink's particular brand of complex cartoon electronica really is a wonderfully unique listening experience.

Grade: A