Little Me Will Start a Storm

iTunes Review

Portland, Oregon has quite the scene in the new century, though it may be more a series of independent bedroom studios than a live action social network. After all, the quirky, eclectic pop music of Loch Lomond sounds as if it was birthed in the dreams and imagination of precocious young men and women who follow their impulses without a second thought. (LL has morphed from a one-man project of Ritchie Young to a full group over the course of LL’s four albums.) The child-like wonder of “Elephants & Little Girls” is a beautifully crafted piece of bucolic pop, with strings and keyboards creamily frosting the sing-along basics of a tune that could be the second cousin to the Beatles’ “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.” The dizzy harmonies of “I Love Me,” the Irish swagger driving “Blood Bank” and the gripping falsetto and shimmering cosmology of “Earth Has Moved Again” create sonic surprises that keep evolving with each listen. The sparse acoustics of “Egg Song” come remarkably close to early Incredible String Band, another group of capable eccentrics.