Nadja Korinth and Ryan Schaefer are the consummate noughties alternative "band". Korinth is based in Berlin and Schaefer in New York City, but the two

Nadja Korinth and Ryan Schaefer are the consummate noughties alternative "band". Korinth is based in Berlin and Schaefer in New York City, but the two have managed somehow to thrust their creative vision into being, thanks to the wonders of the modern age. Thankfully It's Midnight in Honolulu isn't another email collaboration to bore over, this is the result of two musical minds confined in the hipsterrific Rare Book Room studio. The results are unsurprisingly haphazard given the dual citizenship, but there is a common thread of dark electroid pop weaving the tracks together somehow. Think a lo-fi re-imagining of the Knife or the darkwave answer to Barbara Morgenstern and you might have some idea of what Palms sound like -- lo fidelity to a point, but with a synthesized pulse and vocal confidence rarely chanced upon in the genre. It's not a million miles from something you might expect to find on Paw Tracks, but in this case the relentlessly lo-fi production doesn't ever get in the way of your enjoyment of the songs themselves. As Korinth slips from French to German and to English, there's a sense she is genuinely having fun with the possibilities of the genre; and what could be more worthwhile than that? Oddball, sure -- but worth its weight in gold.

-John Twells (December 8, 2008)