The Loch Ness Mouse
Flair For Darjeeling
Perfect Pop
Among Norway’s notable exports (goat cheese, death metal, troll dolls, and milk chocolate), one usually doesn’t think of indie-pop. But for the last ten years, Perfect Pop Records (based in Oslo) has operated as the center of a prodigious Scandi-indie network. Supporting groups like the Tables, the Bartlebees, and Loch Ness Mouse, Perfect Pop proves that mod-rock, of the Nuggets variety, is still alive and well in the land of the midnight sun. Loch Ness Mouse’s latest offering, Flair For Darjeeling, allows the band to show just how proficient they are in the language of hook-driven pop. Gotta love the reference points (which run back to Merseybeat and up to Madchester). Songs like “Judy” and “The Breve” exhibit the group’s penchant for VU and Luna. “Edgerton Underwater Strobe Camera” and “15th Floor” evoke the Monkees with a Lilly turn. And “Faces Around Me” has an unmistakable Herman’s Hermits quality to it. All in all, this is one of the best recent records you’ve never heard.
Perfect Pop Records, Bogstadvn.30/312, N-0355 Oslo, Norway, http://home.sol.no/~perfpop/index.htm
