It's a rare morning when I receive a visit from a representative of the Belgian cultural attaché. So surprised was I at being greeted by Jakke de Flemm so early after sunrise that I did not think to ask de Flemm how his boss found out about my being listed to review the third album by the Belgian band Dim-Dim.

Either there's a hitherto unsuspected Belgian underground in my town, or someone within the Pitchfork organization grassed on me. In the end, de Flemm did not torture, nor did he demean himself or his fine, fine nation by begging in torrents of imprecating tears not to slag Ananas off too badly. He didn't even recite the official Belgian government's list of world-famous Belgians in hope of kindling some admiration for a country popularly perceived as being somewhat lacking in cultural achievements.

De Flemm rattled off some solid facts about this band of whose existence I had no suspicion, and offered me certain inducements for a favorable review. He did mention that, in return for a lauding write-up, I would be handed the keys to the medieval city of Gent, a warm and honored seat in the Burgherhaus of Bruges, and a box at the annual sprout tournament at the Bruxelles' Sportkomplexidrome.

Dear readers, without a thought of accepting de Flemm's inducements and immediately posting them on eBay, I resisted. I could resist even if my duty to you was not so upright and girded with moral rectitude. For Ananas truly blows.

The individual hiding behind the Dim-Dim name is Jerry Dimmer and he obviously loves Saturday morning cartoons. Probably the ones starring Watoo-Watoo Superbird and lascivious and unfeasibly well-endowed mice who wish to hump sexually naïve maidens in the first swellings of puberty. I'm not making this up. The artwork, by Dimmer, makes this quite clear to all.

Dimmer's instrumental hip-hop/lo-fi-tronica follows a similar bent for cartoonish melody and Tartrazine-induced spazziness. "Ka-To Yen" is your grandpappy noodling ragtime-stylee on his CasioTone organ, interrupting your enjoyment of sticky-fingered Anime-grot. "Peek-a-boo" is the chipmunks covering the Vengaboys-- and no, you cannot imagine how annoying it is. "Nutty Crack" attempts some Squarepushery virtuoso drum-machine programming only to ruin it with a bouncy keyboard riff that will encourage those with suicidal tendencies to conclude that Trent Reznor is right: humanity is Satan's fuck-bitch and we might as well engage in superficially defiant life-threatening behaviors in some mall-rat appropriation of Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus.

I am not looking forward with doe-eyed glee to what Jakke de Flemm's boss is going to think of my assessment. Perhaps I'll be involved in a suspicious cement-mixer accident, or be found lying in a boulevard gutter, throttled by Walloonish hands. Whatever befalls me, the unavoidable truth will out. Ananas is infantile crap. Steer well clear.

-Paul Cooper