My Mind’s Eye – Amy Nyman
05/27/01

The Loch Ness Mouse – Ceylon Sailor EP (Two Zero/Perfect Pop)
With their Ceylon Sailor EP, a four-song 7” released jointly by Oslo’s 10 year-old Perfect Pop label and Trondheim’s brand new Two Zero Records, The Loch Ness Mouse chart a mid-60’s based, psych-tinged power pop course. Three of the four tunes included here are of the nasally-British voiced, harmony-frosted, electrically-charged power pop variety: short, beautifully hooky tunes that would fall easily into any ‘feel-good pure pop’ categorical bin. And the fourth track? If the far-reaching subtlety of the Ceylon Sailor title doesn’t recall a certain 1973 Beach Boys hit, the gorgeous “Harmony High School” flatly asserts this band’s tremendous Beach Boys reverence. The tune is a radiant homage to Brian Wilson through and through, from the simple “Cabinessence”-like piano intro through the gradual addition of lush harmonies and backing vocals, unmistakably Pet Sounding bass and drums and soaring ‘whoo-oo-oo’s. It’s a magnificent two and a half minute pastiche I can’t seem to stop playing.