Natives

Having toured with Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem, and keeping a busy recording and performance schedule with bands from Beirut to Coldplay, versatile brass and wind player Kelly Pratt has had little time to focus on his own musical musings. His eccentric indie pop outfit Team B was the result of guerrilla-style laptop recording sessions crammed between tour dates, but with new project Bright Moments he finally had the time to craft a record without a schedule or the other trappings of being a traveling musician. Recorded in winter 2010 one track at a time at Pratt's Brooklyn apartment, Pratt — with help from folks like Nick Petree and Paul Collins and Perrin Cloutier, Beirut's rhythm section and accordionist, respectively — offered Bright Moments' debut, Natives. Pratt's versatility as a horn player takes center stage, employed here as the driving instrumental force as well as in unexpected ways, like as a percussion piece. This sense of freedom makes for melodies as sprawling as Pratt's musical resumé itself, from leadoff single "Travelers" conjuring the Eastern European whimsy of Beirut and swagger of New Orleans brass bands, to "Behind the Gun," which owes as much to the rowdy indie electronica of LCD Soundsystem as it does the sun-drenched highlife swing of another of Pratt's projects, Akoya Afrobeat., Rovi