One thing I liked about Mean Letters before I even pressed play: at 30 minutes, it's a perfect length. So many of the albums win and woo from the beginning but then drag on and on and don't know when to quit. Collapsing Opposites knows better and when the album's done you're left wanting more.

Collapsing Opposites' solo live shows are based almost entirely around one brilliantly simple gadget - the Boss R-21 Loopsation pedal. Over the course of a song Ryan uses the pedal to build complex textures gradually; he'll start with a simple guitar part, he might add some keyboards, a few saxophone lines and some vocal parts. It might get quite dense and then he'll pull it back to a solo guitar again. McCormick does a hell of a lot with the pedal live, so I was curious to see how his music translated on album.

Mean Letters is much like Ryan's live show ? the twee vocals are strongly redolent of sorely missed Athens band The Music Tapes (what became of them?) and pop experimentalism is the order of the day. But the album goes a step further than Ryan's solo performances, adding great horn sections that remind me of the slightly off-kilter Elephant Six Orchestra sound, really nicely recorded acoustic guitars, as well as a substantial number of guest musicians on drums, trumpets, recorder, sousaphone, melodica, clarinet, flute and vocals.

The songs tend towards social criticism which can be quite funny at times, but also makes you want to get Ryan drunk and hook him up with some loose women.

For a first album this is impressive. Last time I saw Ryan play he had just returned from a cross-Canada tour and from his website it looks like he's about to embark on another. He also makes trips down the west coast so you have every opportunity to check this guy out live and if you don?t get the chance to do that, Mean Letters is distributed by Scratch so it may be in your local shop or you can get it from them or from Ryan at www.collapsingopposites.com