Five Spanish Songs

Dan Bejar, the walking, talking, and singing definition of following your own muse, spent the last couple of years lugging around a full horn section in support of his slick and soulful 2011 sophisti-pop outing Kaputt, so it should come as no surprise that anything goes (musically) on this stopgap EP of covers of songs composed by Antonio Luque, the frontman for goth-tinged Spanish alt-rock outfit Sr. Chinarro. Not surprisingly, Luque, a verbose and enigmatic lyricist, is the perfect match for Bejar (they're also both hirsute rock & roll outliers), and the five-track collection requires little in the way of translation, as Bejar's alternately manic and laconic delivery somehow manages to keep breezy, Rioja-sipping confections like "Maria de las Nieves," buffed-up AOR rockers like "El Rito," and disco ball-lit fever dreams like "Babieca" in the same room together, despite their frequent stylistic attempts at escape. ~ James Christopher Monger