Kelley Stoltz: Circular Sounds

Kelley Stoltz is well-versed in iconic/eclectic

'60s rock—The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd—and he

synthesizes bits of them into weird, twittering pop songs. Consequently, Circular

Sounds,

Stoltz's fourth long-player, sounds an awful lot like The Kinks—if The

Kinks had been left alone in an elementary-school music classroom with an

8-track and some mallets. Circular Sounds is brimming with unidentifiable gasps and

skronks, and while it occasionally seems like Stoltz, a longtime advocate of

home recording, spends a little too much time knee-deep in obscure noisemakers,

his scrappiest tracks are also his best. Songs like "To Speak To The Girl"

(honest refrain: "It's hard / To speak to the girl") are charming and tinted

with just enough whimsy, while the acoustic "Something More" is genuinely

lovely, a perfect showpiece for Stoltz's high, winsome mew.