Dance Music For The Introverted

Few bands can break your heart with one album and have you dancing with the next. Even fewer can make the same transition from one song to the next within a single album. Portland, Oregon based duo Kanda has taken it one step further on their latest release from Bop Tart Records, All the Good Meetings are Taken. Nine of the album's 11 tracks simultaneously achieve both.

All the Good Meetings are Taken finds Kanda in a more seasoned, reflective place than their previous release, the excellent indie-pop dance record It's a Good Name For You (555 Recordings.) In the three years that separate these two albums, Kanda's Arland Nicewander and Akina Kawauchi traveled across the country on tour, traded the cold East Coast for the warmer West, and were married somewhere in between. Simply stated, much has happened to the pair in the interim and the growth is evident in their music.

The disc begins with the upbeat and pop-infused "Arctic," a dance track from start to finish (which can be sampled on Kanda's web-site,) followed by the equally foot-shuffling "They'll Need Cocaine."

The tone of the album then takes a major turn and the shift is remarkable.

When Akina's violin strikes the opening note of "List," the entire album gains a depth and an emotion rarely heard in today's pop music. Forty-five seconds later, Arland's synths join in and this wistful track about relationships has become the album's turning point.

While the music maintains a perfect balance between dance beats and sweeping melody, the lyrics indicate matured song writers who have gone to great lengths to write songs which aim to please listeners with carefully weighed doses of both sweet and sour. Take for instance the line "Now I only drink alone, wishing that I had a clone of you to keep me company" in "Drink For Three", a song as funny as it is filled with the sorrow of lost love.

Indie pop fans may draw the common comparison between Kanda and The Postal Service, both bands creating similarly fun, sunny pop mingled with simple yet touching lyrics (though I can promise you that Kanda has been doing this since long before The Postal Service even existed,) but it is The Postal Service's synth guy Jimmy Tamborello's earlier releases with trio Figurine that more closely parallel the sound that Kanda are capable of achieving. Consider the former's Transportation + Communication = Love with its complex and amazing synth sounds, and add a tremendous sense of instrumentation and melody to get a clear picture of All the Good Meetings are Taken.

The album culminates with my personal favorite track, "Frankie," a song comprised of the fantastic vision of what two people might have experienced and achieved together, had they been given more time. This is followed by a perfect track in "One Place," which acts as a seamless transition between the end of the disc and the beginning. Trust me when I say that you will need a transitional track to bridge the two because this album will be on "Repeat" in your CD player for weeks.

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All the Good Meetings Are Taken is available to order at Darla.com, where you can also pick up Kanda's debut full-length It's a Good Name For You, and live album with one-time label mates Boyracer, titled Girlracer/I Do.

Visit Kanda on the web at either Kandapop.com or MySpace/kanda