AJA – THE DARCYS (Arts and Crafts)

Toronto band The Darcys have re-imagined Steely Dan's 1977 machine tooled session-muso ur-funk masterpiece as 2012 guitar rock, successfully nailing the original's zen hipster solipsism midst riffing and feedback. It shouldn't work, but it does. There's a tetchy tension here, somewhere between hommage and deconstruction, which wholly suits Becker and Fagen's jaundiced observations. 'Black Cow' zips along, ending in feedback squalls, 'Josie' is leeched of it's libidinous frug. The indie-jangle makeover of 'Peg' thrills, 'I Got The News' hovers in keyboard haze.

The band say they want to “explore the incongruity between Steely Dan's feel and lyrical content.” By keeping the original melody lines and presenting the lyrics in apt settings somewhere between Radiohead and Midlake they in fact heighten the dislocation, especially to those for whom the original is deep in their DNA. Jason Couse's vocals recall Jeff Buckley without the gymnastics, Michael Le Riche's guitars and texture shimmer and scree across the 7 tracks. Like their self-titled sophmore album, which was produced by Murray Lightburn of The Dears, Aja has been available as a free download on the bands website. Ideally it should be out in the malls in a gatefold sleeve, with gnomic sleevenotes and a cover with the aura of inscrutable enigma which characterises both the original and this inspired remake.

David Owen