Hopscotch Fever, Artificial Go’s debut from last year, was a fetching mix of slippery guitar lines, snappy beats, and singer Angie Willcutt’s clever wordplay delivered in a delightfully arched tone. Melding into a kind of off-kilter post-punk pop, the record recalled luminaries like the Au Pairs and Suburban Laws, while being nevertheless just as wonderfully unique as the ones those bands made. In short, it was one of the year’s best discoveries.

Less than a year later, the Cincinnati band has returned with another record, Musical Chairs (Feel It Records). Generally less sparse in sound than the debut, Musical Chairs is just as charmingly idiosyncratic. On lead single “Circles,” gently strummed guitar riffs are grafted to shuffling beats while Willcut veers between sweetly singing the song’s verses and chortling the chorus about “shaking in (her) boots like a chihuahua!” The band takes a left turn with the subsequent cut “Yaya,” a funky bass line juxtaposed with sharp guitar jabs, bleating synth blasts, and Willcut delivering lines like, “No television to tell me what is happening,” in a purposefully monotonic voice before she squeals the song’s title. Throughout the record, Wilcutt connects similarly amorphous turns of phrase like dots either phonetically or semiotically. As such, there’s a certain playfulness running through the record, which combined with the artful musical execution, makes for one hell of an enjoyable listen.