[ NEW ON CD ]

Poi Dog CD
has original charm

"The Best of Poi Dog Pondering (The Austin Years)" Poi Dog Pondering (Columbia/Legacy)

When Frank Orrall and his band of bohemian musicians left behind their busking ways on Kalakaua Avenue and relocated to Austin, Texas, the remarkable journey of Poi Dog Pondering took an interesting turn.

In the early 1990s, thanks mostly to constant touring for adoring college-age audiences, the band had their moment in the national spotlight as an entertaining folk-rock-world music ensemble.

Some select tunes they recorded while under contract for Columbia Records back then has been compiled by Orrall himself for this best-of CD, and much of the songs here have retained their original charm.

You can hear a bit of the islands in a couple of the selections, in particular the slightly loopy "Watermelon Song," that starts off with a tropical vibe before kicking into a West African highlife syncopation, and free-flow verbiage of "Jack Ass Ginger."

Orrall is also generous enough to include a song that he didn't write, guitarist Adam Sultan's gentle waltz "Thanksgiving."

While much of the band's success stemmed from songs from their first two albums, the eponymous debut and "Wishing Like a Mountain and Thinking Like the Sea," Orrall has chosen to have nearly half the compilation to be made up of songs from the band's final album for Columbia, "Volo Volo."

The album's predominantly more urban and funky sound foreshadows, in retrospect, Poi Dog Pondering's current direction, with Orrall now based out of Chicago.

Because of that, the underrated "Get Me On," with its Talking Heads-like melding of white funk and Middle Eastern sounds, the four-square funk of "Be the One" (here in its promo CD-single edit form) and the musical strength of "The Hardest Thing" get a welcome second-go-round to these ears.