Barcelona-based duo
the Pinker Tones have apparently never met a style of music they don't like. Their second full-length album, The Million Colour Revolution, is even more wide-ranging than 2004's The BCN Connection. Rather like a more world music-influenced version of
Saint Etienne's
Foxbase Alpha or
Pizzicato Five's mid-'90s work, The Million Colour Revolution is based in club-oriented dance music, but it layers in elements of indie pop, bossa nova, European film soundtracks from the '60s, various countries' folk musics, and influences yet more unexpected. For example, the weirdly insistent "Gone Go On" has the warped beat and loopy vocal style of
the Residents, while the jaunty "Pinkerland Becaina" sounds like the instrumental bed for an as-yet-unfinished
Leon Redbone tune and "Maybe Next Saturday" recalls
the Normal and other minimalist British synth rockers of the early new wave era. Hugely entertaining, and much more cohesive than the laundry list of influences would suggest, The Million Colour Revolution is both a giddy giggle and an appealing piece of electronic dance-pop. ~ Stewart Mason