Little Dragon put on an excellent show at Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker a couple of Fridays ago. At one point, I was trying to think of a more talented current vocalist than Yukimi Nagano and was stumped. Then I returned to enjoying the show, because I remembered that lesson, self-taught, from long ago that you don’t lament that you’re not watching Small Wonder when Benson is on, you enjoy Benson.

I had always preferred the jazzier sides of Yukimi, such as her work with Koop, Hird and Ge-ology, but the Little Dragon album has steadily grown on me over the past couple years on a deeper level. Seeing them live has only increased my respect for the band, particularly Erik Bodin’s drumming. Interestingly, I was picking up flashes of Tears for Fears, Janet Jackson, and Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam that I hadn’t sensed before in their music, but not in as nostalgic and stupid a way as that sounds.