Adam & Eve named all the animals on Earth, and (after several millennia), Ken & Barbie defined a carefree Malibu lifestyle that inspired an almost equal number of plastic people. But long after the dust settled from the inevitable collapse of these impossibly perfect relationships, Ken & Adam walked, naked, from the smoking crater of those ideals into an honest reckoning of thoughtful self-examination. (Eve & Barbie opened a chic boutique in Park Slope). 

No, they’re not actually a “couple,” and no, they don’t really sit around examining themselves all day. Ken tours extensively with globe-trotting acts like the B-52s and Mark Mulcahy (Miracle Legion), and Adam (Greenberg, aka Senator) sifts through scores of painfully hummable songs that run through his brain as he serves up his equally delightful takes on caffeinated beverages at his Chinatown cafe The Grandaddy. 

Ken & Adam’s combined comprehension of - and feel for - pop music is no-bullshit extraordinary and schooled to the bejeezus, and it’s a wonder the two of them locked in an upstate cabin (with engineer Michael “Mama” Tudor) didn’t emerge with an anti-matter bomb carved entirely from balsa wood. Or did they? 

There’s a vibe here that’s so bloody good in its groove you’d swear that instead of breaking up in 1970, The Beatles just kept on blending the most perfect parts of their solo efforts, and at some point let Bowie, Lou Reed & Marc Bolan join the band. It evolves through an XTC phase and then back into a mellow groove that’s part Beck/part Spoon, all wrapped up in a Nigel Goodrich-esque production that dabs a hundred musical complexities onto one brush and paints a few simple strokes on a canvas that could be hung in anybody’s living room. 

You be the judge. K&A Surplus’ “c'mon c'mon!” is, at worst, your earbud earworm on your train ride downtown. At best, it’s your unexpected permission slip to a super-chill, stereophonic pop bliss-hang that really shines through in this age of endless, throw-away cultural noise. So worth the listen.