Say Hi

When Eric Elbogen began his one-man-band-with-revolving-friends project Say Hi to Your Mom nearly a decade ago, he was guided by a lo-fi bedroom Pop ethic and a desire to be naively cryptic in his lyrical approach. Populating his songs with vampires and robots and zombies (oh my) as metaphors for the pitfalls and sad inevitabilities of human relationships and romantic entanglements, Elbogen released a series of generally well-received albums on his own Euphobia label, based out of his Brooklyn apartment/studio.

Five years ago, after the release of Impeccable Blahs, the California native decided to move back West, settling in Seattle, where he recorded and released the transitional and oddly upbeat The Wishes and the Glitch, which found Elbogen more open to clarity and directness in his lyrical intent. Signaling a shift to the dreaded musical condition known as maturity, Elbogen signed with Seattle label Barsuk, shortened the name of the band to simply Say Hi and conceived his most straightforward album to date, 2009’s Oohs and Aahs, predictably drawing his best and worst reviews.

For his sophomore Say Hi release for Barsuk, Um, Uh Oh, Elbogen returns to his dour attitudes about love and comes up with the best set of songs in his canon, including “All the Pretty Ones,” which bops along like Ron Sexsmith singing a Stephin Merritt demo as Elbogen further elucidates his feelings on unattainable girls (“They wake up early and scour the town/For men like us with our heads down/So their dance cards are punched with holes/For now until their cover’s blown”). There’s also the snake-charming Indie Blues Pop slink of “Shiny Diamond” on largely the same topic (“You can’t change the fact that she’s a diamond, shiny diamond/And you, sir, are merely just a man”).

Over the past year, Say Hi songs have shown up on TV shows like Gossip Girl and Shameless, as well as in Cadillac commercials, which might hint that Eric Elbogen is cautiously ready for his Indie Pop close-up.

This article appears in Feb 16-22, 2011.