The ungainly monikered Grampall Jookabox is definitely one of the more interesting artists on Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty label. The unruly brainchild of Indianapolis singer/multi-instrumentalist David Adamson, Grampall Jookabox’s second album, Ropechain (out Nov. 4), gleefully assimilates elements of post-Americana rock, glam, R&B, soul, hiphop, and gospel. Grampall appears to be trying to craft accessible songs, but his innate weirdness distorts the efforts into appealingly slanted compositions accentuated with junkyard percussion, cracked synth emissions, and creepy falsetto. If Ariel Pink recorded for anticon., it might come out sounding like Grampall Jookabox.

The disc’s standout cut, “The Girl Ain’t Preggers,” sounds like Sly & the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music” as translated by a rural white boy of limited means and amped up on fear of responsibility and meth. Asthmatic Kitty even has funded a video game based on the song’s lyrics, which deal with post-coital ambivalence and the financial worries that spring from the reality of a mouth to feed. “You Will Love My Boom” recalls ’60s wild guys the Godz, which is a very rare thing to recall in 2008. “Black Girls” is a bizarre paean to sisters who “do shit I can’t explain” and “convince the icecaps to freeze.” “I Will Save Young Michael” is a tender, too-little too-late pledge to help the “King of Pop.” And so oddly on…

Grampall Jookabox play with PWRFL Power and the Terrordactyls at Vera Project Nov. 14.

“The Girl Ain’t Preggers”

Grampall Jookabox - The Girl Ain’t Preggers from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.