Like most music fans and writers, I've occasionally had conversations with musicians I admire. In person, some of them have been quite charming . . . others less so, naturally. And it's sometimes awkward, perhaps, trying to chat with a musician whose music has, unbeknownst to him, become a sort of soundtrack for your life . . . as if he'd asked you to drag him into your world. But it's much more awkward, in a different way, when someone you've met through mutual friends, and with whom you've chatted for hours - about the merits of Brian Wilson's late sixties work, which drummers are overrated, and whether bananas are an acceptable pizza topping - ends up making a record: this one. Belle da Gama is a vehicle for the songs and singing, playing and arranging, of Bradley Skaught, and what makes experiencing the CD awkward for me is this: Over the years, hearing a series of Bradley's home-recorded demo tapes and seeing him perform at the wedding of some mutual friends, I came to realize that unlike any number of friends who might tote a guitar and sing a song or two, Bradley had the kind of exceptional talent that could make good records. Still, this CD comes as a shock. Because with his band Belle da Gama, a lot of prominent Bay Area musical guests, and clear production and recording, Bradley Skaught has come closer to realizing in sound what, I imagine, had always been in his head - and on every level, from melody and chords to lyrics, from arrangement to playing to production - Garden Abstract is a stunning triumph. Opening with an interruption (a one-second drum solo, a throbbing synthetic hum) and proceeding to a brief acoustic number, "Fault Hours," serving as an introduction to the CD, "The Mozart Defect" then kicks in with a tastily crunchy guitar cadence and Bradley's octave-doubled, somewhat Costelloid vocals. A bit disorientingly, it opens with its chorus, swaying drunkenly in waltz-time, before shifting to its classic, guitar-pop verse. Subsequent verses show us Belle da Gama's textural skills, adding a blurrily distorted guitar backdrop, falling back to an eerie, crystalline set of synth tones in its bridge, and showing off a howlingly overdriven guitar solo. All that in three short, catchy minutes. Elsewhere, Belle da Gama assays bare-bones acoustic arrangements, sometimes accented with spooky electronics ("If This Is Where Railways End," "Steadfast and Clear"), searing electric distortion savaging bittersweet psychedelia ("The Cult of Kids"), and avant-garde electronic hip-hop ("Garden Abstract" - smartly, less than two minutes long). Oh, and another couple of straight-up, classic guitar-pop numbers ("CA Redemption Value," "Unfortunate Wine"). Not a moment sounds forced, not a moment out of control (except intentionally). While the blueprints for this kind of graduate-level pop are apparent (and on the CD's guest list), the architecture of Belle da Gama's Garden Abstract is entirely, stunningly its own.

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