Filmmaker
Steven Soderbergh is a major fan of
Guided by Voices (he wrote the forward to
James Greer's biography of the group), so it's no great surprise that he asked former
GBV leader
Robert Pollard to contribute some songs to his 2005 independent film
Bubble. Six tunes
Pollard gave to
Soderbergh for the project are featured on this EP, and while they were recorded in the manner of most of
Pollard's recent solo work -- with
Pollard handing vocals and acoustic guitar and
Todd Tobias handling the rest of the instruments through the magic of multi-tracking -- the sound of these tunes in very much in line with the salad days of
Guided by Voices, only minus the sloppy
lo-fi production that was one of their sonic trademarks. There are a couple of instrumentals on board that boast classic hard
pop melodies, and the vocals numbers fuse offer more muscular variations on the same themes, with tough guitar lines and no-nonsense vocal delivery from
Pollard. Featuring six songs and less than 12 minutes of music,
Bubble is by no means a major project, but anyone who follows
Pollard's work will find this a short but sweet slice of what the guy does best. ~ Mark Deming
![Moon Safari [25th Anniversary Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/5054197906770_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Moon Safari [25th Anniversary Edition]")
