Track of the Day: Softboiled Eggies

I'm usually not a fan of bands that have to get all cuddly wuddly on the name thing. All those acts named after feathered unicorns and rainbow dreamcatchers? You need caffeine just to read their names anymore, let alone listen to the music. But something about Softboiled Eggies caught first my eye, and then my ear. Sure the name's pretty silly. But the humor in the title is slightly more offbeat than the Trapper-Keeper visuals that've been used up and out in the past decade. Plus, this band is on Human Ear Music, the label associated with one Ariel Pink, a guy who knows how to hit you with an irreverent left hook during a stoned lullybye (I've since learned that Human Eye is also run in part by Janet Kim, Softboiled's mastermind). Most importantly, though, there's something both calming and creepy about the band's dreamy electro pop. In the two tracks available on the Human Ear site, "Moon Shine Rain" and "She Fell Through the Trees," the act cuts the difference between Blonde Redhead, Stereolab, and Crystal Stilts. The vocals are severely haunted, but the music spirals upwards slowly, full of hushed whispers and elevating, experimental melodies. Softboiled Eggies is self-proclaimed "bedroom pop" but Kim isn't banging her  way through a closet's worth of instruments here. The Los Angeles gallery owner is a music instructor who holds a BFA in composition and piano performance from Northwestern University. Her music is very much a work of art.