Mint Chip is Kamikaze Palm Tree's Sophomore album and there first one since signing to Drag City Records. They are a duo from Los Angeles of Cole Berliner and Dylan Hadley.
The album opens with Flamingo a sparse oddly off-centre song that imagines what a Flamingo gets up too and thinks, while standing about, as it sort of morphs into a song of longing for an ex who obviously ran off with all their Frank Chickens records.
In The Sand in places sounds half finished like they need to color in the framework of a song, yet this minimal approach makes the song more startling.
Bongo's Lament sounds like a descendant of Miss Murgatroid's Methyl Ethel Key Tones. Predicament has a nursery rhyme feel to a very sparse tune with some No Wave guitar.
Club Banger in this case sounds like a Soft Machine outtake. West Side Syncopation is I assume lifted from West Side Stories soundtrack and re-worked into spare keyboard instrumental.
Y So K sounds like it could have been written just after they slipped out of a K-hole, it also feels like an old madrigal style folk song being updated, this is rather bucolic and blissed out.
Cole's Milk is somewhere between Miss Murgatroid and Rhubarb and Custard while drinking milk and tequila for breakfast.
Smoke On The Milk, But My War owes a debt or two to Captain Beefheart, but with a Cat Power style vocal and some odd Casio tone meanderings.
Mint Chip takes me back to being a kid in the 1970's when getting Mint Choc ice cream was a real treat, but they are singing about speed truck or trap and sound like they have an array of Stylophone's and Fisher Price toys to play with and make music from.
Come In Alone has a gothy wobbling tone going on, as this tale unfolds in unexpected ways. Chariot On Top is experimental kid's toys an analogue synth style sounds with lots of repetition as they sing about a Dollar Bill.
The Hit is an obvious attempt to have a hit, with a song that has echoes of Get Smart! Or Salem 66 with a quiet garage rock organ part and a good slow guitar riff.
Stabilo is in praise of the humble pencil and the need to remain loyal and not cheat and use lesser brands or partners, this has an ethereal folk song feel being mutated nicely for modern times, now where did I leave my Caran D'Aches.
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