www.kisforkennedy.com

I’ve seen a square Afro before—the monster in Blackenstein has one—and a bleached white one on Rosalind Cash in The Omega Man, but a pink Afro is a new one to me. I imagine it takes a dump truck’s worth of self-confidence and freako style to step out on the street sporting one, and L.A. hipster Kennedy has both to spare on this six-song EP. Musically, it’s a grab bag of what must be his personal obsessions—mack daddy disco-funk on “Mama Made Me A Pimp,” Kraftwerkian cyber-pop on “Heavy Metal” (which Kennedy suggests is what “keeps him strange”), gloomy basement indie folk on “Big Drag,” Spector/Wilson orchestral pop on “You Were Gone,” snarky-silly countryish rock on “Canada” (as suspected, it’s the reason why everyone is so uptight), and finally, a echo-laden run through Robyn Hitchcock’s “Heliotrope,” complete with vapor trail sfx and a lazy slide guitar. It’s one thing to say you love this kind of marginalia, and another to attempt in one record, and yet another still to pull it off with any sort of aplomb and skill without sounding like a LP freak run amok, but Kennedy manages to do so with only the slightest tip of his tongue in cheek. If you pop this EP into your computer, you can check out a passel of live footage and videos, proving that Kennedy is not only talented, but understands the whole “bang for your buck” principle as well, which is appreciated.

—Paul Gaita