Trevor Dunn has been a profession musician, as a bassist and composer, for about 25 years. Still you may ask yourself, "Mad what?". "Trevor who?" There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. Back in the mid-'80s he co-founded an avant-rock band called Mr. Bungle and later did time in Mike Patton's cut-and-paste metal outfit Fant mas. He also plays and records extensively with John Zorn among many others.The name "MadLove" is the English translation of a title by surrealist Andre Breton called "L'Amour Fou" and that's all you need to know about that. If nothing else, it describes the obscure object of desire that drives us all to our insane, inevitable, colorful end.The music of MadLove fits snugly somewhere in the genre of "rock". There is no question that the songs are guitar-centric. Around power chords constructed with wrong notes, however, there are melodies that weave in and out of comfort zones; there are drum hooks and melodic bass lines that start on the "and-of-four" and there are Fender Rhodes counter-melodies. Some of the songs are fairly commercial; some will never see the light of radio; Some utilize the classic form of verse-chorus-verse, while others dare to hide form within theme and variation. And somehow, it all sounds cohesive.In writing for this brand-spanking new band, Dunn wrote intuitively, never over-thinking the songs. Yet one gets the sense that he drew upon his many years experience, as a sideman and as a composer, in order to craft music that is at once engaging, thoughtful and fun to crank on the ol' stereo.