take your point about anything that resembles 60s dream-pop automatically being labelled 'wilsonesque' or 'pet sounds like' or 'some other reference to the bb -ish' but in the case of the panda bear disc, the similarities are striking. compare the opening track 'comfy in nautica' (link accomplished, btw, by highlighting the text i want to make a link, clicking on the little globe-with-chain-link-on-top of it icon above this text box' then pasting the link into the URL field and clicking okay) on 'perfect pitch' with say, 'god only knows' or 'wouldn't it be nice' from 'pet sounds' and you'll see (hear?) what i mean.

bang on with procol harum and pink floyd in b.lakes. is it too referential? i've kind of struggled with this question with a few albums released this year that go beyond 'influenced by' to 'striking imitations of'. not sure that the b.lakes fall into the latter category for me, but bands like mahoghany (cocteau twins, joy division), and bloc party ('boys don't cry'/'seventeen seconds' era cure) certainly do. even one of my favourite songs from this year, 'roscoe' from midlake (which you brought to my attention at the last cd club, much obliged) is essentially a perfect meshing of fleetwood mac's 'dreams' with ian thomas' 'painted ladies'. i guess i'm leaning towards the conclusion that if it's done well, who am i to complain? if win butler can channel springsteen, then i guess everybody's doing it, yes?

derek, i knew i'd seen the bjork cover somewhere before. thank you for jogging my memory. does this mean that she'll be busting through walls in that getup every time a group of children starts demanding icelandic pop music? part of me thinks it's an extended april fools joke...surely the web-graphic department at pitchfork generated hoax, yes?