Adem

Cover albums are generally divisive little creatures. Folks have a tendency to feel very possessive of their favourite songs and are very seldom tickled when some upstart mucks about with them. On his third solo album, following last year’s surprise reconvening of Fridge for a new group effort, Adem Ilhan disguises the "upstart” yoke by wrapping it under his own colourful scarf of fandom. There is no hiding that "Oh My Lover” is a P.J. Harvey song, or that "Loro” is by Pinback or "Starla” from Smashing Pumpkins. Adem preserves the itchy energy of the former, the rich skipping melody of the second and psychedelic bombast of the last. What brings them all together is his choice to keep a simple acoustic core arranged with enough extra pixie dust to assure things don’t devolve into open mic night blandness. Along with these somewhat disparate choices, he also tackles even less obvious works like Aphex Twin’s "To Cure A Weakling Child” and even a spare folk adaptation of Tortoise’s "Gamera” that shines. Takes should convince fans everything is okay, since one of their own is at the controls.