*** Ray Wonder

GOOD MUSIC

(NONS Records)

From the Swedish pop label North of No South Records comes this delightfully peculiar little record from a delightfully peculiar little quartet from Umeå in the north of Sweden. Over the course of 11 topsy-turvy tracks crammed into 37 minutes, Ray Wonder -- a band, not a guy -- pay unwitting tribute to the masters of this sort of gleefully warped pop, managing to sound almost exactly like XTC (with a bit of Jeff Buckley thrown in for dramatic measure).

But part of what it means to evoke the ghost of Andy Partridge is to be endlessly inventive, and Ray Wonder manage to keep the bounce in their, well, bounce and its quirkiness, well, quirky. Unlike an overweening XTC wanna-be band like, say, Sugarplastic, who can't seem to distinguish between clever and cloying, singer Henrik Andersson and his mates strike a fine balance of musical novelty and pop scholarship. From the giddy stop-start shifts in rhythm and melody to the orchestral swell of strings and the cocktail-tinged horns, there's a lot here to keep one amused -- and attentive.

-- Jonathan Perry