The Only Thing I Ever Wanted

Album Review

Brimming with delicious simplicity, Psapp's 2006 release The Only Thing I Ever Wanted grooves blissfully between post-rock and bossa nova. The duo of singer Galia Durant and studio guru Carim Clasmann swish through 11 hypnotic melodies built on a sample-based pop some call clunktronica, rife with everything from horns and maracas to squeaky floorboards and crumpling paper. Live instruments such as piano, brushed percussion, and xylophone comprise most of the musical samples, creating a powerful hybrid of earthy folk and sophisticated electronica. Durant lays her rich, sultry voice over this rootsy instrumentation — sounding very much like a more vocally gifted Nico — while Clasmann weaves all the odd parts together in the studio. This combination of quirky sounds and suave production lands the disc in musical territory that feels at once both innovative and familiar; something like Beck, Björk, and Velvet Underground meeting in a lazy Rio cantina only to discover they've all been listening to Stereolab and Nouvelle Vague. The album varies in texture from humidly sensual to wildly bohemian but never simultaneously. Instead, each new mood washes in and out on its own in a style that remains unfettered, a remarkable effect for a record that is otherwise such a curious conflagration of sounds.