Au Revoir Simone is an all-female, Brooklyn trio playing painfully twee electro-pop using three Casio keyboards and a drum machine. Naming the band after a line from Tim Burton’s Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, the three lovely look-a-likes sound like teenage best friends messing about in one of their pink, frilly, suburban bedrooms, and dreaming of one day forming a band. 

The three musicians are self-taught and this is evident in their anemic, girlish vocals and mediocre fingering. These shortcomings appear to have been inconsequential, as the band has garnered a loyal following, a Japanese tour, and various international festival dates. The band also found a fan in the quirky filmmaker David Lynch, after playing at a discussion he gave in New York City earlier this year. Lynch asked Au Revoir Simone to play at his exhibition, The Air is on Fire, in Paris this past May.

Their self-released album, The Bird of Music, opens and closes underwhelmingly with languid, delicate numbers that easily fade into the background. The album picks up some much-needed momentum midway through with “A Violent Yet Flammable World,” which features layered vocals and an ethereal landscape amid heavy beats. “Dark Halls” and “Night Majestic” keep the perky pace with their bubbly, bouncy pop melodies reminiscent of early ‘80s New Wave. The band should consider composing more upbeat and energetic songs since these seem to work best for them. 

Though Au Revoir Simone are too sugary sweet and precious for most tastes, the above tracks will definitely please music fans favoring twee tracks. One of the album’s weakest tracks is titled, “I Couldn’t Sleep.” If the ladies of Au Revoir Simone had only listened to this—among other songs on their CD—they would easily have been lulled into slumber.