Junior is a collaboration between American songwriter, Ian Fisher, and German producer, Fabian Kalker. Fisher sings his lyrics alternating between the coy charm of a Harry Nilsson and the reptilian smirk of a Mark Bolan. But he's cool enough to know that he isn't THAT cool, which makes him SO much cooler. Kalker's beats are crisp and to the point. The chord-changes are just clever enough to keep you on your toes. There's enough ear-candy floating around to make these otherwise skeletal tracks feel finished. Like a t-shirt that's torn in all the right places. Like a carnation in the ashtray. Like finding the right song when you turn on the radio.The music of Junior is not only catchy, but it is rich with musical, literary, and cultural allusions. There are clear musical references to Depeche Mode and Joy Division in a drumbeat or The Police and The Beatles in a guitar riff with a touch of Damon Albarn here and Danger Mouse there. Hidden in the lyrics are references to the works of T.S. Eliot and Erich Fromm, just to name a few. These references are intertwined with direct and honestly phrased allusions to contemporary urban life as a young artist swimming and sometimes sinking in Spaßkultur. But these guys don't take themselves too seriously all of the time. Though those lyrics hiss at the superficiality of a bourgeois bohemia, they also ironically acknowledge the fact that Junior itself is a part of it.