CD of The Week

OK Go - And The Adjacent Possible (Paracadute)

Ten years is quite a long time for a band to wait between albums, but OK Go has spent the past decade on life (kids) and other projects (music engineering/film directing/acting). Time just slipped away, as it does, in the blink of an eye. Singer Damian Kulash recently told USA Today, “The next thing we knew, it had been like eight years since our last record and we got to work making one."  But with today’s short attention span, will the musical landscape still hold a table reservation for a band like OK Go?

In their early years, OK Go carved out an energetic, catchy power pop niche alongside bands like Fountains of Wayne and Phantom Planet. Then they became infamous for their music videos at the perfect time; jogging alongside YouTube's skyrocketing popularity into a household name. Most people can probably identify them as “that treadmill band” before naming a single song. That success led OK Go to pursue art that makes them happy, which includes pushing the music video envelope. On And the Adjacent Possible, their new, fifth full-length record, the video magic continues. For the light and airy-smooth single “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill,” they choreographed a synchronized dance over 64 different phone videos, where body parts seem to emerge from one screen onto another, and every attention to background detail is controlled. And just recently, accompanying the new album’s release, they dropped a robotic mirror kaleidoscope video taken in one shot for the single “Love,” a song about Kulash’s twins. The track starts out sounding like XTC’s “Making Plans for Nigel” and transitions to a bombastic Flaming Lips stylistic groove.

Placing robots and smartphones at center stage for their videos is not just a sign of the times that may feel dated in 25 years. Those choices reflect a time capsule of society today; one that is hanging on a precipice, where a single technological pivot could change life forever. And that potential butterfly effect is precisely what And The Adjacent Possible refers to. The Adjacent Possible is a real theory from biologist Stuart Kauffman, who believes that evolution advances in small steps based on what is already around, rather than sudden, untraceable jumps. Their opening track “Impulse Purchase,” with its slinky bass and cartoonishly shifting genres, explores AI as one current Adjacent Possible phenomenon that, along with algorithms, influences and decides what is consumed. Who thought they’d be reading about scientific theory while checking out an OK Go review? Heavy stuff.

But walking back, And the Adjacent Possible is not all deep, brainy contemplation. Many of the tracks have a light island vibe about them. “Fantasy vs. Fantasy” is a hopeful, tropical, crooning love song, while the echo-y strings of “This Is How It Ends” create an ocean breeze on the intimate, quietly-in-your-headphones breakup lament. The slow reflective “Going Home” feels like a Caribbean take on the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s song of (nearly) the same name. And the whispery, album-ending slow-waltz “Don’t Give Up Now” is an optimistic yet honest comfort that was initially penned for a friend suffering from cancer.

OK Go still has enough musical and social creativity to keep them in the spotlight for another go around, perhaps many more trips. As long as they continue to take older ideas like the T-Rex-inspired “A Good Good Day at Last” or the insanely catchy Bowie-“Let’s Dance” tribute “Take Me With You,” they’ll have a place in the Rube Goldberg-ian maze of pop entertainment - with or without accompanying videos. But live is still the place where they shine and they return to Philly for a sold-out show at Union Transfer on Saturday, May 31st with openers L.A. Exes.

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Review by Shepard Ritzen