JANGUS KANGUS, Fortune Cookie

Immensely enjoying my immersion into Fortune Cookie, Jangus Kangus’ fourth overall recording but first on a real indie label (Hand Salad) and sonically masterminded by a great producer Mike Post, my first response should have been, damn, what a magically sparkling but blisteringly edgy flow of dream pop, surfology and classic raw garage rave up rock.

Or, “OMG, I could easily float away in the soulful caress of lead singer/songwriter Jasmine Sankaran’s sultry, ethereal voice.” Or wow, whatever the hell Jangus Kangus actually means (catchy though, right?), her current band of Steph Anderson (keys, backing vocals), Antonio White (lead guitar, bv), Dan Perdomo (drums) and Ryan Kellis (bass) shifts so seamlessly and intuitively from fuzzy raucousness to fluid soul-ish coolness from track to track as they bring Jasmine’s quirky, eclectic, pointed visions (musically and lyrically) to glorious eternal life.

But timing is everything, and you know what I was actually thinking when I was listening in depth the day after Fortune Cookie’s release? I live in the same city as they do (Los Angeles) and I just missed album release shows the previous two nights? Not only that, but they’re somehow new on my radar when I’m supposed to kind of know these types of incredible local artists exist!

Overcoming my cursing to self for having missed out till now, the listen to and through Fortune Cookie was all the sweeter, ear tickly and more provocative, starting with the loping, breezy and countrified opener “You Only Love Me When,” a charming lament about only getting affection when you’re drunk or otherwise F’d up and wondering if this can work sober. After enjoying the lighthearted poppy jangle offset by rich lyrical incisiveness of “Double Lives” and the slightly funkier, more rockin’ romps “No Future In This” and quick tempo shifting, anthemic jangle-fuzzer “Love Is Dead,” the Jangus Kangus party shifts Eastward, or skyward, or hard rockward, on a bustling, soaring, adventurous jam whose title is as offbeat as the band’s – “Janakita Kirakita.”

Whatever that means, it’s trippy to hear Jasmine’s vocals so filtered and distorted as musical fire rumbles around them. Its lyrics offer a few brief observational character studies. As awesome as the break in the more fluid action it is, it’s more or less a sonic outlier, because the band gets right back to cool, glitzy, ethereal funk business on “Goldilocks” and the what is perhaps the collection’s most compelling tune “Honeymooners in Venice,” a lushly sung, sparklingly produced dramatic narrative about a contentious relationship on the downside that’s probably not worth saving; its closing line, “the vision’s getting darker and dimmer,” kinda says it all about the story, but the music soars and excites nonetheless.