Space Mtn’s “Hovercraft” conveys the kind of early-’90s escapism that you expect to reemerge in response to this decade’s perpetual (and comparatively volatile) state of tumult. “I heard you were building a hovercraft for me/I can’t wait to see this place behind me, tiny/I heard you were building a hovercraft for me/I’m looking forward to going somewhere pretty,” former filmmaker Dina Waxman sings, full of equal parts rue and hope, channeling one of many pioneering alt-rock women she grew up listening to at Beverly Hills High (here it’s Sinead O’Connor, as it is on the searing “Next Time” and the beguiling closing track “Past Tense”) on her group’s full-length debut, A Drawing of a Memory of a Photograph of You. But despite explosive passages of electric guitars (“The Bright Side,” “Glide”), there isn’t much context for the album’s words or sonics; it could very well have been written and recorded in the early ’90s, its ballads just the right amount of Mazzy-Star-atmospheric, its lyrics just the right mixture of angst, dreaminess, and remorseful disaffection. Whether this makes Space Mtn’s music universal or just plain nebulous (the album’s songs don’t delve nearly as deep as its title), is up for debate.
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