You could listen to the collective recorded outputs of both Japanese Breakfast mastermind Michelle Zauner and Crying guitarist Ryan Galloway in less than three hours. In such a short span of time, both musicians have established unmistakeable, rich sonic identities. For Zauner, this constitutes an ethereal, but appealingly earnest, indie/shoegaze aesthetic, while Galloway’s main project turns out an unabashedly epic, synth-inflected brand of pop punk. The pair are kindred aficionados of concise, effective compositions, making for a delightful, surprising and perfectly logical team-up as BUMPER on the delightful 12-minutes-and-done EP Pop Songs 2020.

As it says on the tin, Pop Songs 2020 is a bite-size collection of sugary major-key bops, leaning fully into the colourful synth noodling that typically frames an archetypal Crying track, while making liberal use of the light, innocent lilt inherent in Zauner’s singing voice. Opening track “You Can Get It!” comes straight out of the gate on a wide-eyed, buoyant synth line and a squelching bass sound. Zauner’s vocal skips along the top of the instrumental with a J-pop-adjacent playfulness that calls to mind British electropop upstarts Kero Kero Bonito. There’s an acoustic shuffle underpinning the joyous, unashamedly 80s chorus, and the song concludes on a rip-roaring guitar solo (likely Galloway’s work) that seems to smirk “fuck it, why not?” It’s fun, which is a refreshing mood with which to set out the release’s stall, given that the run of musical releases since the imposition of worldwide lockdown seems to have ranged in mood from wistfully introspective to oppressively dour.

Zauner and Galloway live only three blocks away from each other in New York City, but they collaborated on Pop Songs 2020  without ever meeting in person as writing and recording took place in the thick of the city’s lockdown back in June. There’s something encouraging about their choice to work predominantly within this upbeat mode, tapping into a collective desire for reemergence, renewal and joy that seems to have captured the West as restrictions gradually begin to lift. Pop Songs 2020 has a sense of childlike curiosity and excitement, with the connection between its two creators transcending the physical distance that separates them and going deeper than the digital superhighways linking their electronic communication devices. “I get this special feeling when I’m with you,” sings Zauner on the bridge of “You Can Get It!,” and there is something genuinely special about the gleeful abandon that’s apparent right from the EP’s outset.

A moodier tone is struck on “Black Light,” which runs on a skittering drum machine beat and neon-drenched electronica. Zauner sings in a lower register, closer to the wispy melancholia of her Japanese Breakfast persona, while the track’s synth stabs and Moog-y interlude create a more sedate, noirish atmosphere. If any of the songs lean into the darker, introspective tendencies that many people adopted in quarantine, it’s this one. Third track “Red Brick” picks the mood up again with a shock of synthesised strings and bounding bass that falls in step with the disco-flavoured pop nostalgia of Carly Rae Jepsen — the discerning contemporary pop connoisseur’s singer of choice. The duo still can’t resist another note of melancholy, though, in the quiet/loud dynamics that shift the song from pre-chorus to chorus and Zauner’s yearning refrain to go “on and on until there’s something.” Whatever that “something” is, she taps into a surely universal feeling of persistence in the face of uncertainty.

Sauntering down the lanes of established pop modes, BUMPER arrives at the quintessential piano ballad on the appropriately-titled closer “Ballad 0,” but Zauner and Galloway make sure to inflect the track with just enough wry, modern augmentations among the Elton John-leaning pianos and sweeping strings. Zauner’s vocal is light, but aches with feeling underneath a compression effect. In its final moments, the track’s traditional instrumentation dissolves into a sweet, spare synth outro that tenderly merges the competing sensibilities that underpin this particular project.

Pop Songs 2020 is not a disposable work, but neither is it especially serious. It’s light, punchy and brief — a condensed showcase of its creators’ formidable pop songwriting craft. The tracks navigate familiar territory with just the right amount of ingenuity and creativity to keep things engaging, surprising and entertaining throughout. Like bored kids, Zauner and Galloway seem to have formed BUMPER as a means to keep playing with their favourite toys, even in isolation. And just like the most satisfying playtimes we might recall from childhood, Pop Songs 2020 mixes inherited and established ideas with fresh curiosity and imagination. Hopefully, this sort of work will have a chance to grow and thrive as the world opens up once more.

Rhys Handley (@RhysHandley2113) is a journalist and film writer from Yorkshire in England. Now based in London, he is the biggest Talking Heads fan who still hasn’t seen Stop Making Sense.