(Editor’s Note: This post marks the debut of another new feature, Now Playing, in which we here at Shaking Through World Headquarters highlight whatever we’re listening to at the moment. Enjoy.)

Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians’ 1991 effort Perspex Island supposedly has something of a “bad reputation,” at least according to the All Music Guide, perhaps because of its unapologetic pop ambitions. Rubbish. Sure, producer Paul Fox buffs some of the songs here until they’re sparkling with studio perfection, but so what?  All the better to enjoy the breezy, rollicking “Oceanside,” the the horn-fueled sugar rush of “Child of the Universe,” the bubblegum melodicism of “So You Think You’re in Love” and the subtly insinuating “Vegetation and Dimes” with the clarity they deserve. 

There’s not a bad song to be found here, and in fact “She Doesn’t Exist” (with a debatably pointless but nonetheless pretty cameo by Michael Stipe) and “Ride” show Hitchcock expanding his songwriting tool set, branching into quote-unquote “conventional” lyrical territory without sacrificing his talent for indelible hooks and solid song construction (it’s here, in my opinion, that Hitchcock lays the foundation for some of the intelligent, affecting and notably less-precious work found on later efforts like Respect, Moss Elixir and Spooked).

If anything, it’s heartening to hear Hitchcock prove himself capable of insight that isn’t wrapped in either elusive and sometimes jarringly oddball imagery or the straightahead directness of, say, ”I Wanna Destroy You.” It’s a stronger album, I daresay, than his 1988 major-label debut Globe of Frogs — and seeing as that record boasts gems like “Vibrating,” “Flesh Number One (Beatle Dennis)” and the effortlessly catchy “Balloon Man,” that’s saying something. It’s a gem. Dig it.

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