Concerning The Number 7 And Your Love opener “Jackie Kennedy” begins — waves crash, the wind swoons, pianos linger, birds (literally) chirp, voices shout and sing — and it becomes abundantly clear: it may be snowing in Montreal and damp in New York City, but for Jonnie Penn and Olivier Bonnard, a.k.a. Bikini, it’s Summer year-round. It’s the “middle of June” in Bikini-world and the here-and-now is what this EP is about. “You’ve got to wake your move / it’s not getting early,” shouts Penn on the driving force of “Tonight”. This is the Beach Boys if Pet Sounds had been written with midi-controllers on speed and Viagra. Look no further than the trio of “Oh Girl Get On the Floor”, “Where’d You Get Those Legs”, and “Sex”, where Bikini not only embrace themselves lasciviously, but advertise it with lines such as “come on with me/ let’s have sex.” Sex is best in the summer anyway before winter makes us pale and gangly. And Concerning the Number 7 deliberately situates itself in this tropical niche — best shown by the picturesque cover of feet dangling off a boat in the ocean.
The narrative trajectory of the EP flows like the euphoric Summer to which we nostalgically return. The days and nights are pure hedonism — “we had no worries/ no reason to care” — but summers end and Summer love realizes its own ephemera. Nostalgia ushers in an era of self-reflection, “I remember everything / remember when we were young”, sings Bonnard on the album’s shinny lead single “I Remember Being Young”. Perhaps the albums’ greatest achievement is its pensive title-track, eschewing vocals and acting as its sole down-tempo moment, “Concerning the Number 7 & Your Love” manages to be their most expressionistic track.
Bikini, keenly aware of the blogosphere’s chronic ADD, just want themselves heard. This album is offered at the “pay-what-you-want” rate on their MySpace page. After receiving initial attention for their cover of Feist’s “1234″, they released this debut back in July. So why worry about this record in November? Simple: summers end, but nostalgia never dies, and this EP fantastically captures this spirit.
Related:
