Fuzzy, lo-fi pop debut saves best for last

This surreally giddy, overstuffed and under-finished album—the debut by the Philadelphia one-man hurdy-gurdy Colin Pate—sets up its tent hopefully near the better neighborhoods of Elephant Six-dom.  Intermittently excellent (and intermittently unintelligible), Smother Party is a purely provisional stab at psyche-pop greatness that may, in time, result in permanent residence.  For now, though, it’s best to walk quickly over the rickety foundations of drum machine and jerry-rigged keyboards, past the early essays at found poetry, toward the latter part of this dense and under-structured album.  Once past the short, keyboarded blippiness of the title track, you enter an altogether more enticing space, one bounded by the orienting thud of four-four beats, but still embellished with festoons of errant ideas.  Here’s a place where brief flurry of “Immigrant Song”-ish guitar riffs can dart off half-cocked into thickets of reverbed pop choruses worthy of Ariel Pink (“Constantly Changing”), where a steady bass line pulses under dreamy choruses about “self-pleaaaaasuurre” (“Samantha’s Reverie”).  The best two songs come last, though, adding just enough clarity to Pate’s lo-fi, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink aesthetic to give you a good grip on what’s happening.  “King Elvis” totters forward at half speed, plaintive lyrics about seeking King Elvis with a flashlight and falling asleep with dictionaries on one’s eyes making a sort of you-had-to-be-there sense.  And “Luxury Liner”, a whispery whimsy about love, death, and submerged cruise ships, is everything you could want from a skewed bedroom genius with one eye on Jeff Magnum and the other on Syd Barrett.

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