It would be a pity not to refer to biographical information in this preliminary report on Saba Lou. Here goes nothing: at the age of one, she slept through a meeting with Iggy Pop; at the age of six, she released her first 7-inch; and at the age of eight, she recorded the song “Good Habits (and Bad),” which was used for the closing credits of the cartoon series Clarence and thereafter released on Seth Bogart’s label Wacky Wacko. That’s right. One, six, and eight. A quick study, so to speak. If it makes you feel any better, this wunderkind has a small competitive advantage: her father, the garage rock guru King Khan, seems not to have completely ignored his daughter’s talents. Saba Lou promptly whizzed through elementary and middle school and at 15 fiiiiinally released her first album, Planet Enigma. And it’s pretty great. While the other late-millenials are streaming cloud rap, Saba Lou daydreams and strums on her concert guitar, carefully mixing in an organ here and there. Her songs rarely last longer than two minutes and almost never use more than three chords. She sings of fate, of waiting for the bus, of nature boys and of marzipan. Hers are ditties of a charming, friendly breed, genuine and unpretentious, fully of their time and simultaneously wonderfully timeless. But that’s no surprise—after ten years in show business, you get the hang of it.

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