The Madrid/New York-based musician Christina Rosenvinge's third (mostly) English-language LP is a mixed bag: On about half of the songs, her blend of loungey art-rock and mannered, Nico-esque vocals is inventively alluring; on the other half, it's pleasant enough but roundly unmemorable. To understand why a musician as talented as Rosenvinge, who has a knack for evocative ice-melt arrangements and striking textural vocals, would squander that talent on some of the non-events that pepper this album, we might look to her origins.
Indie fans probably know Rosenvinge from her trio of Smells Like Records LPs and her collaborations with Lee Ranaldo, who lends guitar and backing vocals to a couple of tracks on Continental 62. But she's been active in music since the 1980s, when she was half of the tart-pop duo Alex y Cristina, who were stadium-packing mainstream stars in the Spanish-speaking world. In the early 1990s, Rosenvinge left the group and began to explore more sophisticated, idiosyncratic fare as a Spanish-language solo artist, then switched to English-language U.S. releases around the turn of the century. Imagine that you're a musician with heady aspirations who spent the 80s spinning sugar for television audiences in the most outrageous blonde bangs imaginable (seriously): Mightn't you go to any lengths to distance yourself from this persona? I'd probably write a few boring songs too, just to make a point.
Of course, this is pure speculation, and it's equally possible that Rosenvinge's muse is just finicky. Continental 62 is most successful when she uses stately dream pop as a baseline, contrasting it with unexpected textures and tangents, rather than an ultimate end; the four tracks that privilege inventive songwriting over hazy atmosphere are the best. The title track's creeping, solitary piano and cooing vocals move through three distinct phases of emphasis, unlike the weaker songs' equivocal drift; contrasts occur as crisp edges surface from and subside beneath the blue blur of her voice. Album standout "White Hole" is distinguished by its frosty yet lively vocals, slashing rock bridge, and the inspired, Life Without Buildings-ish onomatopoeia that precedes the chorus. On "A Liar to Love", Rosenvinge trades her ice princess routine for a naturalistic singing style that's well suited to the song's spry lilt, evoking the liquid cool of Stereolab or Georgia Hubley. And on the Spanish-language song "Tok Tok", Rosenvinge's voice directly engages with the terse textural elements seething beneath it, rather than drifting amid them, similar to Under Byen's broken clockwork sprawl.
The album's other six tracks aren't bad; they just don't have the substance to recommend repeated listening. On "Window", with its mincing vocals and tinkling music box accompaniment, Rosenvinge draws pretty pictures but neglects to animate them. "Jelly" drags with an unappealing blend of seriousness and preciousness permeating Rosenvinge's monochromatic warble, and "Helicopter Song" is very similar. Meanwhile, "Teclas Negras" is like a Spanish version of the title track with less dynamic melodic phrasing. In its entirety, Continental 62 is fine for background music. But the substantial number of moments when it vividly leaps into the foreground makes one wish, on the main, for more sound effects and fewer affected sounds.
