"If you have a good storyline," Borges used to say, "why write a novel when you can just pretend it already exists and mention it in passing on a short story?" David Marx applies the same reasoning here: if you have killer hooks and lovely melodies, why bother with three-minute-plus songs when you can get everything over with in 60 seconds or less? Now, add a convoluted premise about sixties meta-nostalgia -- hence the album title, which translates as "nostalgia nostalgia" -- half-sung in Japanese (Marx is currently a student in a Tokyo university) and you get one of the most adventurous and unusual concept albums of recent times. You see, Marxy was raised in the late eighties on such a steady diet of Wonder Years episodes and oldies radio that he inevitably came to idealize... well, not so much an era that he didn't really take part in, but a constructed image of those supposedly better times. These lovely songs deal with nostalgia about nostalgia, which explains the author's choice of sugary, elegant chamber pop; Marx follows the immortal path first envisioned by sound poets and pioneers like Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, The Zombies, Forever Changes-era Love, Todd Rundgren et al. Breathy, almost tactile choruses (check the dreamy, caressing vocal intro to "Do We Have To Start This All Over Again?"), spidery figures crawling down a solemn harpsichord, moving pizzicato strings, bouncy melodies and sunny, sing-along harmonies are prominent ingredients of surf-psych-pop ditties like "Ashika Love" and the wonderful "Make It Though Today". To enhance his crafty, rich '60s revivalism, Marx also employs the futuristic timbres of synthesizers and drum machines, introducing a more contemporary effect that keeps vampiric retro excess at bay.

On top of all this, there's the issue of the album's length. Kyoshu Nostalgia is less than 20 minutes long, but its twelve tracks never sound sloppy, rushed or incomplete; each verse-bridge-chorus sequence segues impeccably into the next, giving the impression of a single song. It's an admirable exercise in economy of ideas -- the envy of those ostentatious prog-rockers of old, who often stretched their lame-ass pseudo-deep concepts into double and triple albums. Fortunately, Marx avoided the inherent dangers of settling down in the role of surrogate Pet Sounds boy, which would have been a real drag -- particularly for a composer who can stuff a 90-second pop miniature with more ideas than many of his peers offer on an entire album.