Turn the Page

Japanese/Swiss duo Tim & Puma Mimi are arguably out to do little more than a sweetly enjoyable pop album borrowing from all sorts of ideas and styles from under the sun. But that's the point — they make it work. If not on the head-swirling level of collage and reworking that figures like MIA and Santogold have proven to excel at, something about Turn the Page is squarely in the "it's pop, we've heard it, you've heard it, we all like it, let's have fun with it" camp, something that merrily blends hip-hop, dancehall, soft crooning, electronic swirls and riffs, lounge grooves, and whatever else into a blend that's just that. Perhaps inevitably this calls to mind classic J-pop album approaches as well — Mimi sings in her native language throughout rather than English, and earlier metapop types like Pizzicato 5 and Cornelius can be sensed in the end results. But when songs like "Aquarium," "Princess and Cat," and others fizz with just the right amount of breezy energy, slinking drama, and general atmosphere, there's little to criticize and much to simply outright love.