The surprising notion of the venerable art weirdos of Pere Ubu releasing a commercially presentable pop album, a quarter of it recorded with a Big-Time Producer, might seem like a large green blot on an otherwise impeccable integrity score. Indeed, hard-line fans who prize willful anticommercialism may object to this wonderful record on principle. But Cloudland, an immediately likable and frequently delightful work, also offers its share of uneasy listening and is ultimately as subversive as any Ubu effort.

In the past, Ubu adorned many of its best tunes with noise, disharmony and free-form electronic graffiti. Cloudland reduces such attributes to mere accents and reveals a new style of songwriting that tempers the group's inveterate nonconformism with an unabashed pop focus. The adult sing-along rock & roll echoes early Eno, late Undertones and, most strongly, the forthrightness of Talking Heads.

Cloudland gets off to an ingratiating start with two of the four tracks produced by Stephen Hague (OMD, Erasure). "Breath" and "Race the Sun" appropriate structures from classic pre-Beatles pop singles but add unlikely bridges, tantalizing lyrics and David Thomas's unmistakable warble for an accessible sound that remains pure Ubu. Hague's other two efforts, "Waiting for Mary" and "Bus Called Happiness," are even better, matching catchy choruses to more adventurous verse arrangements.

Longtime Ubu producer Paul Hamann steers Cloudland's second side away from polished pop, back toward traditional Ubu oddity. "Flat," for instance, overlays an ugly two-note vamp with bizarre spoken-word drama, while "Nevada!" features a deliciously devolved reading of "Sloop John B." Cloudland is state of the art Ubu. (RS 556-557)

IRA ROBBINS