(FORTUNE Magazine) – Cibo Matto Stereotype A Warner Bros. Records

Maybe the guy in The Graduate was right. Maybe the future really was "plastics." As engineered by a couple of Japanese women based in Manhattan, studio alchemists Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, Cibo Matto's second album comes off like a shiny, flyweight fusion of pop-culture polymers--bubblegum, disco, hip-hop, 1980s hair metal, bossa nova, and an exquisitely Japanese brand of Hello Kitty kitsch. Listening to Cibo Matto's global-economic synthesis feels like crashing into some cartoon netherworld where Abba waltzes with Kraftwerk at Studio 54.

In other words, it sounds fake--but not in a bad way. If Stereotype A won't send you plunging into the chasms of your soul, at least it's fantastic stuff to take to the beach. The duo's last album, 1996's Viva! La Woman, was devoted to the fleeting ecstasies of food; there were paeans to ice cream and beef jerky. Although Stereotype A broadens the band's turf (it has love songs about people instead of artichokes), the essence remains the same. Like a spoonful of sorbet, Cibo Matto dazzles the tongue for an instant, then melts.

--J.G.