Coconut Records- Nighttiming

It is fairly common nowadays to find Hollywood actors and actresses branching out into the music industry. Despite an utterly cursory knowledge of mainstream culture, I know that Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves, and many other thespians have dabbled in rock music. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for my ears), most of these "multi-talented" artists fail to make any waves in the business.

This actually renders Jason Schwartzman's diminutive Hollywood status beneficial to his musical aspirations. Schwartzman consequently has a better chance of being taken seriously without being scoffed at for wanting to be more than bespectacled toolbox Max Fischer from 1999's Rushmore. With that being said, crafting good tunes always helps.

Schwartzman's band Coconut Records doesn't fail to deliver either with its debut Nighttiming. The album embodies all that is great about balmy summer weather. Hot weather is at its best when shorts and flip-flops are required, by shirtlessness is not. When you can step out on your deck and not have to skip around frantically in order to avoid foot burn. Schwartzman and company achieve this healthy balance on their debut effort no less, which is filled to the brim with enchanting oooh's and aaah's as lead singer Schwartzman expounds on fairly tepid yet entirely relatable issues.

Let it be said now that this band is not anchored in lyrics. The band thrives on creating radiant pop melodies and they pass that sonic test with flying colors. Nighttiming, which sounds like some dismal dance record, kicks off with the band's first single West Coast. Within the first few seconds, listeners can tell that this is not just a pastime to Schwartzman. He has devoted time and energy into creating crisp, concise pop songs that can still be genuine and tell a believable story. Set to absolutely grandiose harmonizing in the background, lead singer Schwartzman weaves a story of solitude and homesickness as the aahhh's swirl and soar. Quite the start.

The next song is title track, one of the few songs that actually seems to fit under the album's moniker (which makes sense since it is after all the title track). With dizzying keyboard lines and pulsating drums, the song is essntially 170 seconds of indomitable head-bobbing and foot-tapping. The two aforementioned actions are all one should really want out of summer music and Coconut Records induces this behavior effortlessly with every addicting hook and vocal harmony.

Clocking in at about 33 minutes and a half, the album is terse as stated earlier, but it doesn't make it any less memorable. If anything, the brevity had me longing for more. Some albums tend to be overdrawn and as a result, forgettable. This album does not contain any filler. Sure there are weaker tracks (Summer Day, which coincidentally landed a spot on the Spiderman 3 soundtrack) but they are far from mediocre and still have their place within the album's big picture.

One thing to keep in mind when analyzing Nighttiming though, is the shift in direction midway through the record. The first half of the album is quite jaunty and uptempo while the last half is far more laid-back and often finds a solo (barring the background vocals) Schwartzman plucking away on his guitar with the odd synth line thrown in for good measure. While this aesthetic isn't as bouncy as the first 15 minutes of the record, the shift isn't sufficiently drastic to detract from the overall theme, giving Nighttiming an organic feel.

One by one, Schwartzman's quasi-lullabies run their course to finally lead into the fantastic closer, The Thanks I Get (not a Jeff Tweedy cover if anyone's wondering, although that would be interesting). This track is an appropriate culmination to the album, with the amalgamation of both halves creating a pleasant backdrop for Schwartzman's slightly distorted vocals as he claims: "It was obviously the summertime that made you change your mind". Pop bliss.

Schwartzman has managed to avoid the crossover artist stigma and his band has in turn constructed clever, ingenious, and most importantly catchy songs that are definitely worth a spin. Coconut Records have released one of the best of 2007 so far and are among the few artists capable of creating buoyant pop music that never falls into trite, saccharine territory. Buy it now.
7.5/10