Shaken, Not Stirred

PINK MARTINI SERVES UP ITS SECOND ALBUM

Don't let the fizz fool you. The music of Pink Martini, the 12-piece cocktail-pop ensemble based in Portland, Oregon, is a potent brew. While Hang on Little Tomato, the band's enthralling new album, certainly qualifies as "exquisite musical wallpaper," in the words of bandleader Thomas Lauderdale, it's more than a lifestyle soundtrack for the swizzle-stick set (or a luxury-car commercial waiting to happen, though the group's songs have already turned up in campaigns for Citroen, VW, and Lexus). The new collection of sumptuously groovy arrangements is militantly cosmopolitan, containing splashes of everything from Afro-Cuban dance and Hollywood-movie music to the spooky exotica of Yma Sumac and hi-fi hip of Esquivel. There's even a heartsick number about a one-night stand ... in Japanese. The idea, says vocalist China Forbes, is to counteract the provincialism that has crept into the culture of late. "People around the world have this cliche of the George Bush American," she explains." We're trying to undo that."

AARON GELL