Using bent circuit devices, weather band radio and samples galore, local duo Beatrix*Jar stirs up a weirdly digestible dish. Beat-driven, with flourishes of electro-squelch and glitched-out sample collage, then smoothed over with keys reminiscent of late '70s soul, Beatrix*Jar seems like a less catchy, but more experimental, Hot Chip. Perhaps it's the cheeky lyrics, while akin to Hot Chip, would probably feel just as reasonable on a record by Art Brut or Electric Six. Backed by such quirky production, they hardly seem out of place, even if they are far from enlightening.

While the adventurism on this album presents an interesting upside, it also presents an unavoidable hurdle: This is beat-driven music that simply would not go over well spinning at a party. This is truly headphone music. The kind of music you cherish for the abundance of sounds as well as for its general unpredictability. In this respect, the album is a success. Aside from its relatively low score on the party play-ability scale, "I Love You Talk Bird" also suffers a bit from a lack of song ideas, something painfully evident in song titles like "Verse," "Ready to Rock" and "Oral Fixation." Despite these shortcomings, Beatrix*Jar creates undeniably interesting music; they just need to figure out what to do with it. CMJ

www.beatrixjar.com