CD, Hyperbubble, 2007
www.hyperbubble.net
Hyperbubble’s sonic approach is what really brings back the fun in electronic music. “Airbrushed Alibis” is one of those albums that can pretty much make your day if you give it a chance. You can choose to take it seriously or pretty much just drop your music defenses down for a while (I know it’s hard wich so much copy-paste electronic music nowadays) and just enjoy it for what it is. Upbeat and lighthearted, Hyperbubble manage to bring some pop sensibility into their electronic machinescapes without rendering the final result blatantly mainstream, and it’s just so much in-your-face you can’t really avoid it.
“Airbrushed Alibis” kicks off with “Synesthesia”, a well produced song that’ll immediatly take you off your feet. A strange remark for this song is that when I first heard it, I’d swear it actually was around 4 or 5 minutes long, however, to my surprise it’s only 2 minutes and a half long. In fact, Hyperbubble do that very well, most of the songs in “Airbrushed Alibis” are quite short but nonetheless quite complete, they just deliver what they have to while keeping it smart and simple. Next there’s the ironic, almost sadistic and more wavey “Nervous System”, which paves way for “Hyperdome” which is almost sort of a bridge to what is to come next. And what comes next, may you ask? Well definitely much more intelligent electro powerpop, and “Indoor Kidz” makes a good run for it, keeping it almost innocent and yet somewhat sexy. “Rollerboogie Babydoll” is probably going to drag you along into madness with its sharp lyrics and crazy electronics, which can only get crazier when you get to tracks such as “commuter”, which is very fast-paced and almost underlines the stress of actually commuting, wherever to, right before unexpectedly dropping you off at “Non-Biodegradable Waste Disposal” which is much more of a moody and almost dark song that will start to get you ready and slow down to the title track “Airbrushed Alibis” and (almost) lay you down to peace with the soothing last track on the album, “Teen Dream”. Oh, wait, let’s more. “Synesthesia” makes a cameo appearance later again on track 13 and if it wasn’t quite what you wanted, there it is! A bonus track, curiously titled “Bonus Track” which actually now gives you EXACTLY what you were looking for, oh yes, and absolutely free. Brilliant!
“Airbrushed Alibis” makes it out as a pretty good collection of songs which will undoubtly get you tuned on. Yes, like a switch, get it?
[7/10]
— Gonçalo Vasco