Poto and Cabengo

When an American musician tries his hand at Indian classical music, the result is often embarrassing. It's all too easy to convince yourself that you've got the hang of the basic elements of some foreign musical style, but you're almost always wrong. Similar problems often — though not always — arise when Europeans think they've figured out country music. Poto & Cabengo are Jens Massel and Michael Cramm, artists whose previous work has generally fallen within the category of abstract and minimal electronica. As Poto & Cabengo, they ply a strangely enervated faux-folk music in which languid, even lackadaisical vocals are mixed very low beneath acoustic guitars, creaky synths, and cheap-sounding rhythm machines. They are at their best when it sounds the least like they're going for a postmodern Woody Guthrie vibe: highlights include the brief but lovely "Six Trees," a lovely instrumental titled "Sterretjes," and a little number called "United Artists" that sounds like a cross between Tom Waits and the Fall. Less successful is "Parkland," which, with its deadpan "Wipeout" quote and rudimentary slide guitar, sounds too much like weird for weird's sake. But the found-sound collage of "Suevian Rhapsody" works very well, and "One of the Reasons" invokes a bluegrass mood without getting too goofy or embarrassing. It's probably just as well that you can't hear the lyrics very clearly, though.