Cibelle Frankenstein

Though taking an autumn stroll down a cobblestone lane in old world Europe may have been Cibelle Cavalli's inspiration for the song "London London" on her genre-bending album The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves, the song takes on a much larger life in its execution, weaving a delightful cacophony of electronic blips, bleeps, and whirs around a Brazilian acoustic guitar and the wonderful chemistry between Cibelle and Devendra Banhart.

Just when you're settling into Cibelle's sensuous bossa nova vocals, Banhart gently steps in with the sophisticated swagger of Johnny Depp meets Michael Bublé.  The playful song builds up with increasing echo delays and eventually disintegrates as if to say that not even this magical song can sustain such an idealized vision of city life longer than four minutes.

Cibelle obliquely asks: "Which is more alien in this song, the flying saucers in the sky or the urbanites hurrying by peacefully?"  If the extraterrestrials sing and write like Cibelle and Banhart, beam me up, por favor.

This post was originally published on blog.boyfriendacademy.com.