There are lots of pop songs about love, but few of them are as sweet as Looper's "Impossible Things #2." A boy and a girl meet by the random writing of a letter, then spend seven years as pen pals before they even hold hands. The song's narrative is not, strictly speaking, impossible: It actually happened when Stuart David met his wife Karn. Looper is the child of this not-quite-impossible union.
The band originated in late 1997 with a kind of multimedia extravaganza at Glasgow Art School. Karn showed her super-8 film loops and kinetic sculptures while Stuart's brother, Ronnie Black, projected some slides. From behind an enormous box on stage, Stuart ran through a repertoire of skewed electronic pop. It went off without a hitch, and Looper was born.
"Impossible Things #2" was just one of the delights of Looper's 1999 debut, Up A Tree. The record's playful mix of lo-fi beatbox sounds and imaginative stories led to a tour of the States with Ronnie playing guitar and a fourth member, Scott Twynholm, firing samples and playing keyboards. The band would often end shows with a little ditty called "Who's Afraid of Y2K?," a preview of sorts for its new record, The Geometrid. Dealing with technology and its effect on daily life, Looper's latest songs are more carefully crafted, the arrangements more complex than before. In addition, Karn has taken on more vocal duties, adding a strong counterpoint to Stuart's singing style. Looper has moved from its tree house into a cyberspacestation, the Geometrid.
This smooth, white, Kubrickian vehicle is "the sort of thing we'd imagined would exist in the year 2000, but doesn't," Stuart explains. Straight out of a 1960s streamlined dream, the Geometrid can only be found on the cover of Looper's new CD and latest web site (www.geometrid.co.uk).
"A Geometrid is really a moth, though," Stuart continues. "Part of the Looper family of moths. Loopers are moths too. It's all quite confusing, isn't it?"
Confusing it may be, until you let your ears do the thinking. The opening song, "Mondo '77," includes the urgent cries of ex-BMX Bandit, current Cheeky Monkey, Francis Macdonald amid a Casio riff and an unexpected blast of ska-styled horns. The happy-go-lucky sentiments of "Money Hair" grin their way through a shuffling beat.
Some of the new material was inspired by Looper's experiences in a strange land across the Atlantic. "Uncle Ray" contains conversation overheard during an afternoon at a California seafood buffet (astute fans might recall that Ray Suzuki introduced Stuart and Karn to the term "looper"). "Bug Rain" details a sleep-deprived journey across the States, when Stuart was quite happy *not* burning flies but watching them hit the windshield. "These Things," based on a guitar tune by Ronnie, is another wistful classic in what appears to be LooperΓÇÖs burgeoning Songs About "Things" series. "On the Flipside" is the recordΓÇÖs most charmingly ingenuous song, with Stuart singing, "I'd like to sit down in the shade/Maybe drink some lemonade/Sit and just be quiet and breathe."
Then we're back to the future with "Modem Song." Only Looper could transform the squiggly static noises of a computer hooking up to the Internet into a tale of rabbits and rice cakes. Ronnie's piano tinkling led to the swerving beats of "My Robot," which asks the musical question, "What would happen if you programmed your computer to write songs for you?" (The answer strikes a blow against human obsolescence.) The albumΓÇÖs thematic cornerstone is "Tomorrow's World," which compares the reality of the year 2000 ("No one has traveled to Mars/I've not seen a time machine yet") with what people in the past projected about it ("Everyone would live in things called biospheres/Everything would be virtual reality"). It's a wry example of Looper's best talent: taking ordinary, even mundane details and turning them into something glorious to hear. With The Geometrid, Looper continues to explore the strange new worlds of everyday life. It's a magical mystery tour that you won't want to miss.
