Album review: NYPC, NYPC (The Numbers)

For their third LP, the indie-disco group once known as New Young Pony Club have slimmed to the duo of Tahita Bulmer and Andy Spence and abbreviated their name to boot; their music, however, only gets richer. So, while opener “Hard Knocks” has the spry chantability of early hit “Ice Cream”, it proceeds in a more ambiguous register, with sinuous electronica matched by complex emotions.

On one hand there’s the deviant dub of “Now I’m Your Gun”; and on the other, “Things Like You”, a wonderfully tender duet with a chorus that’s sweet like Scandi – while compelling throughout are Bulmer’s vocals, which segue from aching vulnerability to coiled ferocity and afford the robotic grooves an all-too-human heart.