Panther Secret Lawns by: Kieran O'Shea Mon:03-Sep-07 Label: Fryk Beat/Popfrenzy Year: 2007 WB rating 78 out of 100

Pop doesn’t have to be a dirty word. Admittedly you have to add something in front of it like deranged, disjointed, or experimental to attract indie fans attention, but it is impossible to shy away from something that makes the world a little better. In recent years highlights like The Unicorns, Gonzalez, and The Blow have showed that pop is at its sweetest when it is perversely played with; when unlikely influences and instruments are blended together in a schizophrenic brew, catching the listener off guard but still delivering that unmistakable hook-laden bliss.

This is exactly what Charlie Salas-Humara, Portland’s Panther, has achieved; putting together a head splitting cacophony of fractured jazz beats, synth laden rhythms, and deranged disco on his debut album Secret Lawns, and coating it with falsetto vocals. It’s quite a mouth full, but he has accomplished all of this with the finest bedroom recording finesse, complete with the creaks of chairs as he leans over to turn off the recording device, static buzzing from dodgy connections and minor rhythm-related mishaps.

Salas-Humara excels as a musician armed with a laptop and iPod, a mic, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and some of the freshest dance moves this side of your local indie cauldron. Such prospects often fall short and crowds are left staring at someone dancing like a twat and wishing the culprit had stayed tucked away in their bedroom. It is all well and good following that little voice inside of you that wants to just cut loose and not give a shit about what people think, but it takes real talent to deliver it convincingly and successfully.

It is lucky then that Panther’s music is highly addictive - his compositions revealing classic pop sensibilities and layer-upon-layer of well constructed beats, harmonies, and synths. Genres are blended together with electronic glue and Salas-Humara is quick to reveal them all. Opener ‘Use Your Mouth to Breathe’ is an electronic R&B affair, starting with his disco falsetto wailing as his voice layers over it as he sings about being kicked out by a girl in the morning severely dissed. Drums pulse and stomp as synths bubble, covering it all with sleazy thick sludge.

The grimy disco aesthetic of ‘How Does It Feel’ reveals droning synths and a drum machine that hammers and fuzzes as his falsetto splits the electronic air. The Casio then fires up as the infectious chorus breaks, complete with strings and the orchestral button firmly pressed down on the keyboard punching through. ‘Your Pants Are Creased Familiarly’ sounds, depending on what you watched in your youth, like a cheesy ‘80’s cop show or porno. A sleek funk bass line repeats and synths wail and fade as the chorus becomes a shuffle.

But the intention of Secret Lawns isn’t solely to have fun; the listener is also challenged by such an eclectic mix. There is more than one reference to off kilter jazz on the album. ‘Here We Stand’ and ‘Take Us Out’ both harbour accomplished live jazz drum patterns and on the latter improvised guitar spits. It adds yet another interesting texture to the album unexpected amongst the electronic ambiance of it all.

There are however a couple of examples of how such music go horribly wrong. While the majority of the album exhibits an abundance of flavour, ‘Telephone Wire’ and ‘Tennis Lesson’ sound simply messy and boring. The former is an unimaginative drum machine romp, and on the latter Salas-Humara’s falsetto becomes grating as he patches together one too many layers of computer game sounds and harmonies.

But there is something for everyone on this album. The Vice magazine brats will be satisfied by the ‘subversive’ beats, the private pop perverts left salivating from the catchiness of it all, the beat junkies taking notes from the grooves, and clubs kids grinding jaws happily to the falsetto wailings; everyone succumbing to the euphoric bliss of ‘Tigers Touch’ at the end of the album.

No matter how far Salas-Humara pushes his music and the listener, the sheer number of sounds and amount of genre splicing makes the record both unique and intriguing. This in turn ensures that it never becomes overbearing. He has been completely unbashful and uninhibited with his work, and that surely is always refreshing and worthy of attention.