It makes sense that Dutch-turned-Los-Angeleno artist Nick Van Mofwegian is opening for Foster the People on their way to Coachella. Under the brand Young & Sick, he designed the covers for both of their albums, as well as ones for Maroon 5 and Robin Thicke, and a line of clothes for Urban Outfitters. No successful person can seemingly be content to just do one thing at a time these days, so now he's expanding his creative reach into the musical realm with this self-titled hipster electronic take on R&B.
There are charming moments over the course of the album's ten tracks - the opener "Mangrove" is a blippy bit of vaguely soulful pop; the weirdo-barbershoppy stuff on "Heartache Fetish" is fun; Van Mofegian's falsetto on "Nowhere" works well over the harp-like synth lines to almost approximate something sexy - but I personally found the general twee-ness of the bedroom electro exhausting by the time "Twentysomething" faded to a close.
This isn't to say that there isn't a way to pull off making a sexy electronic record, but when the general adorableness of Young & Sick's approach overtakes anything resembling sensuality, it doesn't make for a particularly enjoyable listening experience.
Listen to the album once, pull a few songs out (the Junior Boys-ish "Ghost of a Chance," perhaps?) to include in mixes for the car this summer and ignore Young & Sick's less successful overall effort.
