The most tremulous voice in psychedelic folk-pop returns. Childs, stepping out for the first time without Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, here gets to quiver through 14 of his own songs and dotty-ditty interludes. One music fan's engaging whimsy is invariably another's self-indulgent twaddle. What prevents Chops from warranting the second description is Childs's knack for guileful artlessness. Thus, a song such as Costa Rita, a light-as-a-feather bossa nova, ostensibly recounts a holiday romance between two seafront stallholders, yet its restrained airiness lends the line "Ice cream sells when it's hot/But don't sell so well when it's not" a powerful metaphorical poignancy. Beneath the eccentricity and the throwaway, then, lurk hidden and often murky depths.
Wichita