New pop hoax BPA is a trick worth playing
Jim Farber, Daily News, 14 February 2009 [Link]

There's nothing like a good pop hoax.

From the "Paul Is Dead" rumor of the '60s, to the '70s band Klaatu (who refused to reveal the names of their members or their backgrounds), a great scam always get the juices, and the press, flowing.

Now you can add to that trickster list the BPA project, an album that is purported to be the lost work of a great unsung band from the bell-bottom days of the '70s.

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to ferret out the truth. The "band" is, in fact, a one-off project created by Norman Cook, of Fatboy Slim fame, and his engineer, Simon Thornton.

The BPA moniker stands for the Brighton Port Authority, inspired by the English seaside town where the two toil.

In one sense, BPA's music won't throw Fatboy fans for a loop.

There's a club ambience to it in both the drive of the beats and the shadowy echo of the sound. More, the project honors the guys' mixed-tape ethos by featuring different guest stars in every track.

Those here range from oldster Yanks like David Byrne and Iggy Pop to younger Brits Pete York and Ashley Beedle. Still, the cuts favor a far more song-oriented and formal approach than anything from Fatboy's catalogue.

Cook's role model in this project would seem to be Gnarls Barkley, given the music's wry tweaking of R&B-related forms, though this isn't nearly as '60s driven.

The Iggy Pop track, "He's Frank," flings its way across the speakers with a thrillingly tinny riff, as taut as early Velvet Underground.

York's "Dirty Sheets" mines herky-jerky pop, while "Jumps the Fence" comes closest to Gnarls territory with a Motown-like driving bass line. Likewise, "Should I Stay or Should I Blow" has a groovy, shindig-ready riff, but with a vocal cadence that's pure Kinks.

For all its backward references, BPA ultimately sounds nothing like an album of the '70s.

It's too informed by postmodern genre-hopping and up-to-the-second production values.

Even the song that actually dates from that time - a cover of Nick Lowe's "So It Goes" - gets run through the ringer. That's all for the better. Ultimately, the BPA's music has a sense of pluck that's equal to its cheeky packaging.