I Guess I've Been Good, Because the CD Gods Sent Me a Golden One

Lover's Leap review

I am ashamed of myself. Truly and totally. I almost put this CD back into the pile I was digging through because when I flipped the cover over, I saw a chunky fellow - evidently the artist himself - on the back cover. He looked like this guy I once worked with at Zia Records who was a freak. Just a freak. He carried a big thermos wherever he went, like a blanket. He cried all of the time, sometimes other boys would tie him up with tape and leave him there, and I believe one time they sealed him inside a cardboard box against his will. How they even got him in there, I'll never know, because he was easily six feet tall and rolled in at about 300. Okay, I'm getting off the mark, but he really reminded me of Thermos Tape Boy, and I thought, "This doesn't look like the kind of guy who makes my kind of music," but then I realized how desperate I was to fill this space. So I put it on.

And lo and behold, it's one of the best records I've heard in a while. The guy in the photo is indeed Dan Bryk, the musician, the pop nerd guy who sings straight from his insecure little heart. The first song that bit onto my ear was "Mark Turmell V2.0," a sparse, jolly homage "to the best programmer in the whole entire world."

Called "the Jimmy Webb of the new millennium" by Guided by Voices founder Bob Pollard, Bryk is stark, layering his Steve Malkmus (Pavement)-like voice barely over a single piano, or maybe one accompanied by his Muppet Babies casio. He's Canadian. I know, that scared me, too, but with touches of Daniel Johnston, a very vulnerable Ben Folds Five, but BETTER, BETTER, so much better. He clashes that simplicity with the musical-genius-gone-seriously-awry touches of They Might Be Giants, quirky, sometimes sad, as in a verse from the track "BBW" (which I translate into Big Beautiful Woman, and I think I'm right): "I need a chunky girl, someone about my size/and when I'm ashamed of my weight /Filled with pity and self hate/She plants a kiss upon my lips/And slips her hand along my hips."

Dan Bryk is a nerd, he's a dork, he's a geek, he's a tard. But he's also polished, a real craftsman and he's honest, and he brings out the dork in all of us. He will make you love him.

RANKING: Buy It Now

Laurie Notaro