Sixth grade math teacher Pete Gidlund is the mastermind behind this solo vehicle/occasional quartet, and he makes his presence known: everything on ABC... is tidy and well organized. Extensive credits detail every tiny sound captured on these 8-track recordings, including foot stomping and... erm... tuned water glasses. Naturally, this illustratively didactic approach is also reflected in the songs themselves -- nine of them on this demo's second edition, as opposed to five on the original). As a result, the EP can be read as a Bedroom IndiePop 101 manual. We get crude robotic sketches of shy indietronica ("Bounce Back", "We're Taking Over And You Know It"), bouncy, jangly twee-pop (the wonderful "Juswanna", here featured in two equally lovely versions), and even (shudder) "Buddy Holly"-esque clever meta-Pop Weezer-isms ("Summertime"). The liner notes, a lesson in reviewer-friendliness, list so much exciting, retro-sounding gear that it's actually a little misleading. Roland synths, Korg rhythm boxes (yes, actual pieces of physical equipment were used to program drums in the old days), Casios and the honorable Sequential Circuits Prelude feature in the instrumental array used to craft these songs, but apart from opener "We're Taking Over And We Know It"'s fuzzy android bass line and rickety electronic percussion, there's little of the '80s-obsessed synthpop sounds you'd expect to hear. Whistles, trumpet and violin keep the album warm, organic and human, making the demo a promising introduction to Gidlund's work. -- Marco Rivera
