Super Love 3

“Good morning. Welcome to Super Love 3. Thank you for being here.” A placeless pop concierge, like a VHS instructional training video, welcomes you to Dorio’s new album. Offering a fully illustrated sound world, Super Love 3 strikingly expands the Austin-based project’s meticulously handmade sonic universe. Wake up in a world of indie pop and electronic elements, pulled from dusty CD shelves, internet archives, and other escapes. It’s the most complete expression of multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Chad Doriocourt’s musical vision yet.

Co-written with core Dorio collaborator Rachel Rascoe, the wildly inventive LP presents a space-age-meets-today meld. Super Love 3 was written during a period spent ordering out-of-press CDs from the late 90s and early 2000s, especially with forms of Italo pop, Japanese Shibuya-kei, and minimalist classical arrangements. Equally indebted to the 90s-does-60s reinvention ethos of Stereolab and Pizzicato Five, Dorio looks to places where influences stack, like a picture of a picture, with unexpected new ideas. On Super Love 3, sprightly breakbeats meet warm acoustic and electric fuzz guitar. It’s a nice place to land.

Dorio’s third LP continues work with the label Earth Libraries. Innovative inspiration, from OutKast to Air’s Moon Safari, merges into a collection fit for fans of modern acts Ginger Root and Pearl & the Oysters. Flood Magazine described Dorio’s sound as “an upbeat form of bubblegum-pop and hip-hop percussion that recalls the recent neo-psych output of Stones Throw Records.” The parts cohere under the artist’s decisively contemporary perspective, which includes production and engineering work for other Texas bands.