Cut and Paste

"If people saw the space I recorded in, they would laugh," admits local singer-songwriter Kyle Andrews. Crafted mostly at the house in Sylvan Park he shares with American Bang drummer Neil Mason and his parents' house in Chicago, the DIY maestro's second full-length is a marvel: crisp, quirky, studio-quality pop recorded using little more than a laptop. Meet the future of the music industry.

Andrews' previous album Amos in Ohio was an expert piece of whimsical melancholia that perfectly married the acoustic appeal of standard singer-songwriter fare with unexpected electronic elements. The new Real Blasty takes Andrews' homespun tunes to a happier place—the words still tell their fair share of sad tales, but the sound is brighter, dancier and features more mature technical wizardry (kind of like the cover art).

The album opens with "Sushi," a song that seems to have developed into a minor obsession for Andrews, appearing on a previous EP and maintaining a years-long residence on his MySpace page. Here, it receives its most glammed-up treatment to date, devolving into a fuzzed-out club track as the emotional intensity ratchets up and he implores the object of his affection, "You gonna save me or not?" The final version was recorded in only one day, after the previous incarnation was scrapped at the last minute.

The irresistible, synth-heavy "Naked in New York" adds a slight edge to the proceedings, as waves of noise crash and recede, revealing a narrator desperate to hang onto an unstable woman. "Polar Bear" (which Andrews re-mixed as a dance track for last year's Nashville Cream Anniversary Party) tackles life on the road and the people you can't take with you. The ramped-up, guitar-driven "A Constant Wavering Between the Real and the Abstract" gets apocalyptic about love, asserting "Everything special fades away / all hearts will be erased." And on the lighter side, standouts "Put Your Hands Up" and "Call and Fade" channel vintage anthemic pop, allowing Andrews to show off his prowess with prettiness.

Final track "Bus" is as close as we get to the Andrews of yore, as piano and acoustic guitar accompany the wistful four-line refrain. But as the song progresses, more and more instruments join the party and things start to get dissonant. The words stay the same, but the end feels nothing like the beginning—could there be a more perfect musical metaphor for a breakup?

For now, Real Blasty will only be available at Andrews' shows, but there are plans for national distribution in early 2009. If all goes well, we'll no longer be able to call him Nashville's best-kept secret, but he might just be able to get himself a new laptop—this one must be tired.