Boom Bip and Gruff Rhys are back with more high-concept tomfoolery.

Back in 2008, Neon Neon dropped the cheeky Stainless Style – a good old fashioned concept album, based around the tumultuous life and times of car designer John DeLorean and mediated through fist-pumping electro-pop. Sleek and clever, it bagged a Mercury nomination and a sackful of critical goodwill.

After a hiatus, the pair have hit the books for a second bit of musical biography. Praxis Makes Perfect documents the activities of notorious Italian activist and publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, responsible for both the publication of Doctor Zhivago and militant communist group GAP. Not your typical pop muse, then, and Praxis Makes Perfect‘s ultra-glossy pop essays makes for a seriously unlikely tribute. Highlights include a boogie jam about meeting Fidel Castro (‘Hoops With Fidel’), Das Kapital as mediated by the Pet Shop Boys (‘Hammer & Sickle’), and an ambient ode to Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (‘The Leopard’) Good clean fun, and (sort of) educational to boot. [via The Guardian]