Review of Itsy Bits & Bubbles by To Eleven

True story: I walked down to the store to buy some bread, and I put Twink's Itsy Bits & Bubbles on my Walkman. While I listened to it, the air tasted...sweeter. Like cotton candy. And I was totally ready to step on some Koopas. That's where this music is from. It was recorded somewhere between the Mushroom Kingdom and Candy Land, somewhere past the seven layers of the Candy Cane Forest.

I was a little apprehensive when this first showed up in my inbox. Anything with a cover that looked like that and that had songs such as "Daisy Doodle" and "Flibberty Gibbet" surely had to be the work of the devil. But no; it's the work of a dude (Mike Langlie) with a toy piano, some electronics, and, I assume, a pretty large My Little Pony collection. But that's cool. Everyone loves those damn horses these days.

This album is almost too cute for its own good. I mean, I listen to a lot of twee pop, so I can take a lot of preciousness. Langlie knows where the line between far enough and too far is, and he's standing right on that line, but he never crosses it. There's a pretty rocking cover of "Axel F," as well as eleven other songs that chime and buzz like Tim Burton's Super Mario Brothers. (And if that ever actually becomes a thing, I want a producer credit!)