Pitchfork

On the first track from the forthcoming Lightbulbs, Fujiya & Miyagi still have a thing for things. The last one's things were Transparent, in the sense that they were pretty clear to anybody-- the knee bones and ankle bones and such of "Collarbones", the photocopier of "Photocopier". On "Knickerbocker", the title may make you think knee bones and "Ankle Injuries", but the English now-quartet's David Best is whispering about more obscure shit (woops, I mean things): musical Hans Christian Andersen statues, comical Washington Irving pseudonyms, former Scottish child stars felled by anorexia. Those kinds of things.

All of which gives us something to think about. Luckily, F&M have also kept up their interest in some of life's finer things: motorik pulses, retro-futurist electronics, fake Japanese accents. And, OK, this Lightbulbs track doesn't always keep its things in the dark: "Vanilla, strawberry, knickerbocker, glory," Best sings, as the instruments make like metronomes. Just like that old krautrock highway where you never run out of road, they'll never run out of things to sing about.