**1/2 Solex

SOLEX VS. THE HITMEISTER

(Matador)

**1/2 Solex, SOLEX VS. THE HITMEISTER (Matador). Holland's Elisabeth Esselink, who DJs as Solex, makes her US debut with a 12-track CD that often sounds just like a Knitting Factory version of Shonen Knife -- squeaky-girl vocals in "Solex Feels Lucky" and "One Louder Solex" and, goofiest of all, "Waking Up with Solex," all of it backed by scratchy horn flourishes, bell-like sound effects, and touchy-creepy drum riffs. Bittersweet ballads like "Solex in a Slipshod Style," and weirdness sleaze like "Solex's Snag" hint of darker pleasures, but not for long; by the time the set moves through "Rolex by Solex," "There's a Solex on the Run," and the funky-bumping "Solex All Licketysplit," Esselink makes it clear that girlish playacting is her first principle.

But what's her point? Shonen Knife, with their chocolate fixations and childlike zoo trips, do more than act like girls at play; they make fun of the packaged materialism of a society filled with theme parks, obsessive travel, and overabundant trinkets. Solex's teenypop voice and toystore instrumentation simply accept the good life. One hopes it's a naive fascination rather than a cynical passivity.

-- Michael Freedberg