*** Dump

THAT SKINNY MOTHERFUCKER WITH THE HIGH VOICE?

(Shrimper)

With his "emancipation" from Warner Bros., the artist currently known as "The Artist" (and formerly known as Prince) became the world's most famous indie-rocker. So maybe it's not that weird that Yo La Tengo bassist and Dump main man James McNew -- who's always seemed like a nice guy, if not a "Sexy MF" -- has recorded a Prince tribute for the lo-fi-and-proud Shrimper label.

And though the cassette-only EP's title suggests a hipster mockathon (like Pussy Galore's Exile on Main Street, or Sonic Youth's Madonna-teasing Whitey Album), That Skinny Motherfucker is actually an inspired, affectionate recasting of Prince's cryptically lascivious pop poetry. Lines like "She wore a raspberry beret/The kind you find in a second-hand store/And when it was warm/She didn't wear much more," from "Raspberry Beret," are rendered even daffier by McNew's deadpan delivery. "1999" becomes a whispered, drone-rock groove like Yo La Tengo's "Autumn Sweater," and when McNew sings, dolefully, about how "parties weren't meant to last," he's practically channeling Nico. Minus "Erotic City," which turns up as a jerky Folk Implosion come-on, this is a Prince homage as winning as TLC's version of "If I Was Your Girlfriend," or Ween's "Shockadelic" -- a hiss-blanketed audio fan letter as wistfully funky as purple trousers fading in the sun.

-- Alex Pappademas