It took me a while to understand what the press release says about this album. Karl Blau, who runs his own label Kelp! and has previously released on K, has taken some previously released lyrics of his D+-bandmate Bret Lunsford (of Beat Happening) and created new music for it. This kind of thing usually involves a lot of collaborators and ?Dance Positive? makes no exception, featuring too many people to mention here. One of them, Steve Moore, has a particularly awe-inspiring resume that includes Sunno))), Earth and Laura Veirs.

?Dance Positive? is a weird mixture of childishly minimal dance beats and bass lines (as in ?Put Me Back? and What?s Not to Fall in Love With?), weathered Mudhoney-style fuzz, thirty-seven seconds of melancholy Balkan brass that hint at the soundtracks of Goran Bregovic (in ?Deception Pass?), commanding trumpet lines (?Heatherwood?) some truly unexpected reggae (most the brass section in ?Kill the Messenger?) and twisted indie pop songs like ?Are You Done?. This is music which wants you to realize that it?s cool and which at times pretends to be too cool to be good. In fact, however, tracks like the lazy ?Sky? aren?t good enough to be cool.

Still, what left me very unimpressed at first somewhat grew on me with repeated listens. Three or four of the tracks on here I?m actually glad to know. ?Dance Positive? is for people who would like their Lemonheads or Dinosaur Jr a bit more messed up and can?t relate to Rufus Wainwright or the Kitty-Yo releases of Gonzales. 5/10 -- Jan-Arne Sohns (26 June, 2007)