It's only just April but there's something about this EP by retro popsters Hanari Kyoko & The Snipers that makes every day seem like summer. From the breezy title track, taking a detour round the edges of psychedelia and crashing headlong through the middle of a meeting of the Village Green Preservation Society, each track is a miniature festival of laid-back, elegantly constructed 1960s pop with uniformly excellent musicianship and production. The slice of bitter lime perching on the edge of the cocktail is Kyoko Hanari's voice; raw but powerful where a lot of Japanese girl singers can only manage tuneful but squeaky, it gives the songs a worldliness and confidence that lifts these very-nice-indeed tracks out of the confines of mere cos-play and into the bright and scary world of real pop music. -Ian Martin, Apr.04.05

Crying On The Beach