Somewhere, in Seattle, there is a factory churning out records specifically for me. Say Hi are the type of band I dream about being in late at night, when I can dare to do so- the type of band that combines the scratchy hooks and slacker ethics of early 90s US indie rock and the navel-gazing musings and new romantic synths of 00s indietronica. And if in this particular case the balance maybe skews a bit too much towards the wrong side of the -tronica half of the equation there, well, no matter. Yes - there is definitely something distinctly Postal-y and Service-y about this record, but again - that’s no bad thing, as any eared and rational person will testify. I mean, how can you resist The Postal Service’s charms? (probably less open melodrama, though- less polish, too)Wishes And The Glitch is apparently Say Hi’s fifth album, but the first under their new, slightly reduced moniker (they were previously known as ‘Say Hi To Your Mom’), apparently the result of this record having “less songs about robots and vampires”. This is the first I’ve heard of them though (sorry to sound like doddering old artrocker here if you’re already a massive fan, btw). They are based in Seattle (as alluded to in the opening line of this review- go me) but are originally from Brooklyn, and also aren’t really a band, mostly being just one guy called Eric Elbogen.There is nothing particularly original about Say Hi, but there is a beauty running through their unoriginality- see also The Wave Pictures, only in a much more American way. Like how many of The Wave Pictures’ hooks are instantly familiar; faintly corrupted new versions of long-established favourite collections of notes, well so are Say Hi’s. Opener ‘Northwestern Girls’ starts out the record with a guitar line which is pure ‘Shady Line’, while ‘Toil And Trouble’ has the telltale marks of security paint from Cursive’s ‘Driftwood: A Fairy Tale’ splish-splashed all over its metaphorical song-hands. This is very different from stealing though. This is adapting bits of US indie history most likely lodged deep in Elbogen’s head (to go out on a limb here) and crafting such wonderfully recognizable synth-pop nuggets out of them. This is the best sort of appropriation- one which hints at a love for the music cannibalised that is almost scholarly in nature; the stealing of a true fan, and talent.Wishes And The Glitch also has the strength and consistency of songs to sustain itself over the entire course of the record. The aforementioned ‘Northwestern Girls’ and ‘Toil And Trouble’ are highlights, as are the likes of ‘Back Before We Were Brittle’ and the constantly-building ‘Oboes Bleat and Triangles Tink’. But really the whole album is very solid- even if certain songs don’t stand out quite as much as they might do (see closer ‘We Lost The Albatross’) then they do at least stand up- there are no clunkers here on display. At certain points you even get the impression that maybe Elbogen could have possibly even afforded- horror of horrors- to be a bit *more* self-indulgent- see the brilliant but somewhat abruptly-ending ‘Magic Beans and Truth Machines’, which at 2:03 could last twice as long and not get old.In conclusion, then: a charming indie-pop record that should find itself remaining a welcome member of my semi-regular albums rotation for many months to come. And what more can we demand of indie-pop, after all? 81%Links Say Hi [myspace]