Pitchfork

"I like...a certain amount of personality, which is perhaps a bit quirky," said visual artist David Shrigley recently, discussing his personal aesthetic. "I like that word very much, 'quirky.'" Embracing that term is a rather bold move, since "quirky," like "edgy" and "hip," has by now passed from meaningful adjective into tired cliché. It's a buzz-word more likely to pop up in an ad exec's sales pitch than in a substantive discussion of art.

But quirky is an apt word for Shrigley's work, both in its purest sense-- i.e. idiosyncratic, peculiar, unpredictable-- and its more hackneyed connotations. In Worried Noodles, a book of Shrigley lyrics released by Tomlab in 2005, his words and drawings are spare and child-like, yet often strange and disturbing. Their naïveté can be quirky in the worst sense, as in "Blackcurrant Jam", a mundane declaration of what jelly tastes best, or "Joy", a crude celebration of how great insanity must be. But most of Shrigley's lyrics take simple ideas and add odd, funny turns. Though not as rich as the work of, say, Daniel Johnston or Edward Gorey, Shrigley's verse evokes both of those truly quirky artists.

Worried Noodles' ratio of good and bad quirkiness stays intact on Tomlab's updated edition, which adds two discs of music created for Shrigley's lyrics by 39 bands. (Shrigley himself sings on one track, backed by Tussle; his ties to the music world include directing videos for Blur and Bonnie "Prince" Billy and providing cover art for Deerhoof's Friend Opportunity.) Interestingly, the success of each song is independent of how good each Shrigley lyric is. Grizzly Bear's take on the aforementioned "Blackcurrant Jam" is subtle and reverent, finding modest poignancy in Shrigley's flat verbiage. Whereas "I Saw You", Shrigley's smart ode to social awkwardness, is smoothed over by the bouncy melody and half-spoken chants of YACHT.

What ultimately distinguishes the hits from the misses on Worried Noodles is how much quirkiness the bands themselves bring to Shrigley's words. Because most of the acts can themselves can be called quirky, each contribution threatens to overflow with cuteness. But the majority of bands keep things subdued, adding touches of character without piling contrivances onto these potentially precious pieces. In many cases, acts find meaning that Shrigley's words alone don't quite convey. James Chadwick and Christopher Francis make understated folk songs out of Shrigley's short verses, while Psapp marries "Sad Song" to an distant keyboard figure, and "No"-- whose lyrics are almost completely made of its title-- becomes a hypnotic chant in the hands of Franz Ferdinand. In fact, many find mantras in Shrigley's repetitions: Scout Niblett coolly repeats "ding dong" in "The Bell", and John Shankie's a cappella "A Song" see-saws like a nursery rhyme.

The finest pieces marry the bands' personalities to Shrigley's peculiar voice. Liars' "Panic Button" is a whirring mess of tribal drums and speeding noise, while Max Tundra captures the goofiness of Shrigley's dialogue in "A Truce" by giving one side of the conversation to an electronic chipmunk. The two strongest unions are the most eerie: R. Stevie Moore's echoey declarations on "Live in Fear" are both soothing and creepy, and the disturbing "The Pretty Girl" becomes even more insidious when mouthed distantly by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone.

The only failures come when bands resort to forced cleverness: Islands drag the aforementioned "Joy" down even further, adding pseudo-wacky music to the inane verbiage, while on "Show Me the Way Things Work" the Curtains' plinky piano and arch vocals try too hard. But such missteps are infrequent considering the project's length and scope. Though many of the bands fall into the same stylistic range, the set rarely gets tiresome. One wonders what might happen if Tomlab were to make genre-based sequels, perhaps with hip-hop, metal, or folk. It's probably best that we'll never know, but it's a testament to Worried Noodles' potency that such ideas are even worth imagining.