Pikahsso, Picnic, Tahiti (PPT)- Save It For Another Day

DIRTY SOUTH MEETS ENGLAND: PPT s Denglish, released by Idol Records, might not sound so strange if the group was actually from England. Instead, the trio of Picnic, Pikahsso, and Tahiti are all Texas based MCs who apparently grew up influenced as much by The Beatles, Britpop, and new wave as they were by hip-hop, funk, and soul. This unusual melting pot of influences comes together in a surprisingly cohesive fashion on Denglish (the album title is shorthand for Dallas and English) and contains tracks that sound like the byproduct of an alternate universe where John, Paul, George, and Ringo grew up in the dirty South listening to early hip-hop records, Prince, and Pet Shop Boys. There s also a bit of a Spinal Tap-like quality to the album, not because Denglish is intended as a fictional parody of a band or a style of music, but because the group sense of humor (or is it humour?) occasionally makes it hard to take them too seriously. Most of the time on Denglish, though, the beats are addictive and the melodies overcome the sheer absurdity of a British accent spitting out lines like, I love Dallas, it s my birthplace. It is on those tracks where it becomes easy to get lost in this strange world where Dallas and England form that state of mind known as Denglish.