A guy, a girl, and a synth: It sounds like the setup for a bad music-nerd joke, but those three ingredients have become some of pop’s most popular in the 21st century, and a quick shortcut to niche stardom for artists moonlighting from less lucrative solo careers (see: Heap, Imogen; George, Inara). O+S, the latest sample-happy male/female pop duo – and earliest contender for least Google-friendly band name of the year – comes courtesy of Azure Ray’s Fink and Remy Zero’s Cedric Lamoyne, a.k.a. Scalpelist, and the duo’s pedigree adds a thin layer of folky weirdness to the assortment of loops and sound effects that go hand-in-hand with projects like this, but it’s neither as odd nor as compelling as you might hope. Though O+S take pains to cover all the genre’s bases – from the doomy “Knowing Animals,” which sounds vaguely like the work of a narcoleptic Siouxsie Sioux, to “Toreador,” which suggests a slowed-down Bird and the Bee, and the Sarah McLachlan vibe of “New Life” – none of the songs are all that memorable. It’s a shame, too – these tracks were built from field recordings Fink created during in Omaha, Alabama, and Haiti, which should have helped them sound like something other than Mazzy Star taking a nap in an elevator with Frou Frou, but ultimately, it’s just more of the same mostly soothing, slightly menacing bedroom pop you’ve heard from plenty of like-minded artists, minus the hooks. (Saddle Creek 2009)
