Thirty Five Whirlpools Below Sound

Mexico 70 seemed destined to also-ran status during the Brit-pop wave: the idea of a band led by a minor adjunct member of '80s cult pop act Felt (singer/songwriter Mick Bund) almost sounded like a snarky hipster parody of, say, Cast, the band led by the guy from the the La's who wasn't Lee Mavers. Overshadowed by the excessive hype of the time, Mexico 70 have, shockingly, persevered, albeit on a low-key level: following a solo record that disappeared almost immediately upon release, Bund re-formed Mexico 70 in the sense of borrowing his friend and producer Tim Patalan's band, Detroit power poppers the F*gs, and recording a new album with them under the Mexico 70 name. Thirty Five Whirlpools Below Sound was originally released in 2006 through the Madacy Entertainment label, a terminally unhip imprint specializing in bargain-bin compilation records. Extricated from that association and reissued on Bund's own Toucan Cove label, Thirty Five Whirlpools Below Sound turns out to be a surprisingly solid collection of crisp, catchy power pop songs that lack the hipster accoutrements of Mexico 70's '90s albums. There is nothing fancy or of-the-moment about this record: it's not even minimal-sounding enough to count as "stripped down." Songs like the dreamy, harmony-heavy "Moving On" and the brisk opener, "Hello Hello," sound timeless, like they could have been released at any point in the preceding three decades. More than deserving of a second shot after its unheralded first release, Thirty Five Whirlpools Below Sound turns out to be Mick Bund's best work yet.