That Man Fantastic’s debut album Pop Songs for Art Films opens with sixties-style layered harmonies, though it’s less Tommy by The Who and more Petra Hayden’s a capella cover of same. Then the second track starts and you’re suddenly in a Spanish bodega, where flamenco-influenced guitars support lyrics that sound as if they’ve entered English from somewhere else: “I want to feel the love from you, my beautiful woman.”  By the fifth track, “Or All 6?” when you’re bopping your head along to a They Might Be Giants-style chant, you’re confused, enchanted and addicted.

Despite the band’s genre-hopping talents, many of the tracks on Pop Songs are boy-and-his-guitar-style love ballads. Stephen M. Duffy, the Manchester native behind That Man Fantastic, has a smooth, wistful voice, especially when crooning lyrics like “I don’t want to talk about your friends all night […] I just want you to think how much you still love me, or if you still do.” Take a glass of Pimm’s out on the lawn, put Pop Songs for Art Films on over the hidden speakers and feel all the tension leave your body.

Favorite Track: Track 1, “Second Skin”