A name like “Rainbow Arabia” comes armed with expectations: a childlike whimsy, a colorful disposition, and some sort of cultural appropriation are among things you’d likely chalk to up a group with the moniker. Their last album, 2010’s Boys and Diamonds, lived up to those first impressions: It was a collection of Orientalism-tinged ditties full of kid-friendly chants and West African melodies. But even when their songwriting was strong, they still felt more like an idea than a band. Their new album FM Sushi, released on their own Time No Place imprint with some help from Cologne techno giant Kompakt, retains that feeling of youthful mischief but reinforces it with tuneful songs and deluxe production that seemed only a distant possibility on Boys.
The Los Angeles husband-wife duo have undergone some changes since then. For one, they’ve brought in a live drummer to beef up their drum machine rhythm tracks. The pool of sounds they borrow from has also greatly expanded. While their reference points are still pretty identifiable, they throw sounds together in a much more interesting way than their old drowning-in-reverb indie pop. It’s noticeable early on, with the spry second track “He Is Sorcerer”, full of New Order grandeur and their most irresistible melody yet. Every phrase uncoils effortlessly from the last, like the stuff summer jams are made of. Tiffany Preston’s vocals sound unnervingly like the Knife’s Karin Dreijier Andersson, but her newfound confidence to play with her voice is almost enough to look past the resemblance.
Though the Prestons are definitely writing tighter pop songs this time around, their inspiration comes from an unlikely source: German synth and soundtrack music from the late 70s. Tangerine Dream and their many contemporaries have been a prominent thread in electronic music for several years now, often with guarded techno types, but the trio handle the influence in unusual ways. The puffy textures serve to make their pop songs plusher, but the inherently portentous tones provide emotional complexity as well. The title track is turned mournful heart-tugging, and they layer bluesy guitar licks over the the machine moans of “Moments I Had". Transplanting sounds from all sorts of genres, it would be easy to label them as record-collector pop or internet music dilettantes-- but their music feels too honest and eager for such cynical categorization.
That being said, it does feel like they’re piecing together bits from their favorite artists, intentionally or not. On moments like the arpeggio-drenched “River’s Edge”, or especially instrumental “Thai Iced Tea”, where MIDI sax rides a bumpy groove like a toy miniature “V-2 Schneider”, they’re their own band. But on “Lacking Risk” and “Three Moons”, they blatantly ape the chintziest of 80s pop. They do it well, sure, but so do countless other bands. And considering this is a group that apparently likes to re-interpret entire Tangerine Dream soundtracks in their spare time, it’s obvious that they’re capable of better. FM Sushi, then, is a stepping stone for a group suddenly poised to do great things, things their debut never even suggested. But looking over the precipice is different than actually crossing it-- so for now we’re stuck with them as they formulate their next move. At least it’s not a bad place to hang around.
