Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3 "Adventure Rocket Ship"

It was only a matter of time, in retrospect, before Robyn Hitchcock would join the insular, rotating cadre of pop-rock session musicians who most recently released The Gun Album as the Minus 5. Sort of led by former Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey, the cadre can count among its dues-paying members R.E.M’s Peter Buck and Mike Mills, drummer-for-hire Bill Rieflin, members of Wilco, Colin Meloy from the Decemberists, Jon Auer from the Posies, and many many more I’m sure I’m missing. It’s a laundry-list of the past twenty-five years of literate-but-playful guitar rock, and it turns out that so much of it can trace roots back to the first two Soft Boys records, the pretty good Can of Bees and the glistening, fantastic Underwater Moonlight. Hitchcock’s psychedelic lyricism and geeky, romantic delivery (and, let’s not forget, Kimberley Rew’s gentle, detailed guitar work) seems by today’s standards just as (if not moreso) fresh and weird as it must have seemed in the midst of disco and punk. And don’t get it twisted—while Minus 5 records (or those of fellow recent super-not-supergroups Loose Fur and Golden Smog), tend toward the faceless collaborative model, Olé! Tarantula is clearly a Robyn Hitchcock record, as if that were avoidable with him in the band. First track “Adventure Rocket Ship” (mp3), picks up right where Nextdoorland, the Soft Boys’ 2002 reunion record, left off—there’s Hitchcock’s fascintion with flight imagery (single “Mr. Kennedy”), the thin, chiming guitars and lilting-yet-potent harmonies, and amazingly still-present sense of wonder.

Pre-Order Olé! Tarantula from Yep Roc here.