Self

Subliminal Plastic Motives (Zoo)
by Nik Rainey

Apt name, Self. 22-year-old wunderkid-in-training Matt Mahaffey wrote, produced, and played damn near every note on Subliminal Plastic Motives (Zoo/Spongebath), using every familiar color in the sonic palette of the moment in the service of ebullient wide-screen pop (NIN meets ELO?). And I’ve gotta say the kid’s learned his indie-pop lessons well. All 12 songs meld big ’90s guitarrorism, organic samples, and an obsessive-compulsive attention to detail with bright harmonies and indelible choruses, turning chunks of keen like “Borateen” into three-minute hooks that snag you and stick. Mahaffey also proves himself capable of offhanded hairpin turns within a single song – listen to how “So Low” slides from a Pumpkins-like power sniffle to bleached hip-hop to synthetic-string symphonia, capping it off with a quiet, Queenly piano interlude without knitting its brow in the slightest. Cool thing. I don’t think it’s an accident that the CD booklet’s made up to look like 12 single sleeves – every song demands to blast out of every car radio from coast to friggin’ coast. The studio geeks will inherit the earth.