Melody Parker’s ‘Archipelago’ Exuberantly Experimental

Refreshingly creative, curiously jazzy, and perplexingly poppy: This is the whimsically weird and one-of-a-kind chamber pop of Melody Parker. Conjure up images of a carnivalesque Kate Bush or Laurie Anderson as a bazaar saleswoman, and you may get a sense of intelligently fanciful and powerfully, idiosyncratically femme energies at work. The one-two opener of “Love” and “The Prophet and the Profiteer” are bustling with playful bohemian energy and mental precision both, an intellectual bacchanalia of instrumentation. Some might find her a little bombastic or musical-theater-y, but those who like their pop to be thought-out, exuberantly experimental, and zestfully pioneering will find much to enjoy here.