Albums of the Year # 8 Kelley Stolz - Que Aura

What I wrote about this genius record back in October:

'Like Bobby 'Boris' Pickett singing the Monster Mash, Kelley Stolz always comes on like he's been 'working in the lab late one night'. One of the great studio tinkerers, he is forever hatching psych-pop thrills, the sonic cousins of dry-ice wreathed test-tubes bubbling with garish elixirs'

Stoltz's latest, Que Aura, is simply a joy. Part Suicide, part Lyres, part sleek early eighties synth, it's made up of eleven short pop songs that just glide by in the night.He has such a way with melody that the listener's part in all this is made easy. Just ease back in your chair and enjoy the ride.

But rather than employing all this evident talent to head for the mainstream, as he easily might, Stolz prefers to hang in the shadows, slipping dark hooks into the mix that recall Devo and New Order and sprinkling vocals across it all with such masterful ease that it makes you wonder, if it's all really so easy, why isn't everybody doing it? A gem of a record.