Portland Mercury on the debut album from Because (Randy Bemrose of Radiation City), out now on Plume Records:

These nine painstakingly crafted pop songs are enjoyably all over the place; the first four alone draw from Kinks-esque ’60s pop, ’70s breakbeat funk, bossa nova, and the textural minimalism of a Sparklehorse ballad—in fact, Because’s unifying aesthetic is this same knack for the warm, tastefully experimental production of Sparklehorse pop polyglot Mark Linkous. Most of I Want to Be Your B grooves a lot harder than Sparklehorse ever did, though, and a grab bag of psychedelia colors the record’s funnest moments…. — NATHAN TUCKER