Matthew Adam Hart, pop or art? First off plural band name, singular (both senses) performer; then there's the early 20th century Eurasian avant-garde ref. But beneath that, the guy professes pop-- "I do pop 'cause that's what my heart goes/ I don't call it art, no sir"-- while blanketing his happy/sad lit-geek tunes with flittering Casio snowflakes and dense laptop frosting that's sweet enough to distract, which of course is the point.
Russian Futurists' latest pop/art nexus, Me Myself and Rye, distills 13 tracks from Hart's first three albums, otherwise unreleased outside North America. Nothing new here, but if it's all new to you this is an excellent starting point; longer-term listeners will point out unfortunate omissions, like "It's Actually Going to Happen" from 2003 sophomore album Let's Get Ready to Crumble, but that's kinda inherent in the whole compilation exercise.
Hart's closest sonic forebear is the synth-kissed poperetta of ca. 1993-1994 Magnetic Fields. The single is "Paul Simon", from last year's Our Thickness, and it's a deceptively bittersweet brass parade, raining squishy rhythms like ticker tape onto perfect, pert melodies. Clattering coming-of-age moment "Precious Metals" extends a metaphor or three, but you'll mostly notice the bleepy hook and all-too-familiar see-saw guitar sample. "C'mon" opens with the spacey Flaming Lips before another welcome drum break upstages the twinkles. Throughout the disc, Hart's high, slinky vocals swim in reverb, while his lo-fi production sets a mesmerizing patina of prettiness. His rhythmic sense admits both youthful turntablism and lonely nights with Simon's Graceland.
A little melodicism and some harmonies are usually enough to conjure a few Beatles or Beach Boys comparisons. Russian Futurists, though, earn such notices for the way Hart successfully submerses his classicist-pop impulses-- his clever love songs, his sadsack symbolism-- while still chasing every last tendril of luminous sound even at the risk of obscuring his talents as a traditional tunesmith. Standout "It's Not Really Cold When It Snows" at first sounds like a blizzardy blur of early 80s synths, but artfully reveals itself as a catchy love song built on one snowflake-precious, tweety-twee observation: "It's not really cold when it snows/ Unless you're underdressed." Fortunately, art and pop long ago gave up mutual exclusivity.
