Lo-Fi-Fnk – The Last Summer (2011) [Columbia] // Grade: B+

It is really hard to not like this album. Swedish pop can be quirky and overhyped, but it always seems rather fun.  This is no exception. An album of  little oddball pop gems, laden with minimal production and some seriously infectious loop programming, The Last Summer just feels good.  Built upon really simple loops, but sequenced with top posh skills, every track on this album sounds both dirty and squeaky clean at the same time. It’s pop.  It’s happy.  It makes for a good time.

This isn’t the stereotypical pop of artists like Erlend Øye or Peter, Bjorn and John either. The music of Lo-Fi-Fnk is far more expressionistic. It’s almost plastic, which makes it very reminiscent of true italo disco, although musically it bears little comparison. There’s more than a bit of a tongue in cheek here, and in a very good way.  Tracks vary from the almost fidget house opener “Last Summer,” the goofy Nu Shooz synth pop of “Want You” to a delicious slab of dance with “Forever.” Despite all this variation, the album actually flows pretty well, mostly due to the off kilter approach to production.

It utilizes very crisp and clean samples, but it is how they are looped and sequenced that makes the album interesting and appealing. There seems to be more going on here than you get on first listen. It is an album almost shamelessly shallow, yet there is an underlying depth that lurks beneath its apparent intention. It is a really great reminder that all music doesn’t have to be suicidal and introspective to be deep and bear repeated plays.

- Nattymari