Obi Best @ Johnny Brenda's

Obi Best
@ Johnny Brenda’s
2/22/09
www.obibest.com

“It’s always important to stretch before you drink.” This was one of many poignant and off-beat pieces of hipster jargon spouted by Alex Lilly during Obi Best’s debut in the City of Sisterly Affection. The last time Lilly made an appearance in the area was as a backup singer for brilliantly postmodern space lounge duo the Bird and the Bee during a sold out performance at Philly’s bastion of NPR sterility, World Café Live. This time around Lilly found herself presenting her own musical project to an unfortunately sparse crowd at the city’s official watering hole for the hip, Johnny Brenda’s. Obi Best’s performance was comprised of tracks from the band’s first LP, Capades. The set included songs like “Nothing Can Come Between Us,” which is along the lines of a fashionably quirky adaptation of Morrissey for a scenester musical and “Green and White Stripes,” a composition far more clever and progressive than anything to be found in the catalogue of the band who (possibly coincidentally) finds their name in the track’s title. The band’s sound hardly strays from the indie pop of the Bird and the Bee, yet lacks the range (i.e. the insatiable danceability of “I Hate Camera” against the tear-inducingly lo-fi “Spark”) to establish itself as quite as profound as the previous band. However, the both pleasantly avant-garde and accessibly chic sounds Lilly produces in Obi Best, combined with her ineffable eccentricity, will surely establish her as her own indie starlet. From the stage of Johnny Brenda’s (donning a charmingly curious pastiche of a leotard, snow boots, and clear-framed glasses) she resembled a Disney princess guest-starring in a Godard noir. Izzy Cihak