Some kids ruin the curve for everyone. These know-it-alls do their homework every night, ace every test, and ask the teacher for mandatory extra credit. And sometimes these pointy-headed goobers take it upon themselves to start a band, write hooky catchy songs, and make the lyrics as literary and hifalutin as possible.

Take, for example, LA chamber pop ensemble Princeton. (Their name alone should clue you in.) Their new EP is named Bloomsbury, which is not just a random word they chose, or a dead end street where they used to smoke pot, nor is it the name of the bass player’s beloved family dog. No, according to the band’s MySpace page:

Each composition on the EP is lyrically focused upon a member of the influential Bloomsbury intellectual collective that existed in London during the early 20th century. Lyrical portraits of Leonard Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf and John Maynard Keynes are each presented in a different musical framework with lush orchestral arrangements that draw from a collage of influences — Serge Gainsbourg’s Gainsbourg Percussions, The Kinks’ Something Else, Jorge Ben’s Forca Bruta and Jean Claude Vannier’s L’enfant La Mouche Et Les Allumettes to name a few.

Ummm…. okay. I don’t understand most of the words in that paragraph. Less talky more songy.

MP3:
Princeton - Ms. Bentwich

Ah, that’s better. So, yeah, the band’s got some serious conceits with their music. But when it sounds as fine as this, it doesn’t really matter.

Princeton plays tonight with Cereal and Psaltier at the Know; 2026 NE Alberta, 8 pm, free