Listening to a Pink Martini album is akin to a night of globe-trotting lucid dreams, sans the flight delays.

“Pink Martini is the single, most talented band to emerge over the past decade.” That quote is from me. But don’t discount it just because of the source- the Portland, Oregon ensemble has forgone the age old tradition of genre, instead choosing to do what they love.

I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to figure out just how to describe Pink Martini through words. The best I could come up with is a hypothetical mission statement.

Their goal is to harness the beauty of the world through sound. Listening to a Pink Martini album is akin to a night of globe-trotting lucid dreams, sans the flight delays.

No two songs sound alike. Each track inherits elements from a different nook of the planet. Russian folk songs, Caribbean dance numbers, classic French lullaby, and underground New York lounge music. You name it, Pink Martini does it.

1997 marked the release of the band’s first album, simply titled, “Sympathique.” The disc transports the listener to an exotic cantina, filled to the brim with a sensory overload. One moment, the band will serenade you with a French lullaby, creating an air of tranquility. Suddenly, the next track is a frantic dance number sung purely in Spanish. It’s this kind of carefree, world-wind attitude that makes Pink Martini so refreshing in a time when bands seem painfully afraid to leave their comfort zone.

The band uses the album to display their versions of a few classic tunes. Taking iconic songs like “Que Sera Sera” and “Brazil,” Pink Martini adds their own unique sound to them, creating a wonderful homage that becomes simply timeless.

Seven years after their debut, the ensemble followed up “Sympathique” with “Hang On Little Tomato,” the album that I consider to be the single best compilation of music of the past ten years.

As soon as the first song, “Let’s Never Stop Falling in Love,” begins, the audience’s strings of preconception are immediately severed by the razor-sharp precision of a seven-second violin assault. The listener is dropped into 50 minutes of orchestrated bliss that never stutters for even the slightest moment.

2007 ushered in Pink Martin’s third album, “Hey Eugene!” Never has a band so easily been able to create such vivid imagery in each of their songs. Personally, every single song off of the album evokes a feeling that harkens back to classic cinema. From “Taya Tan,” a Japanese track that would have fit perfectly in a Kurosawa film, to “Bukra Wba’do,” who’s perpetual energy would feel at home in a high-production Arabic musical.

A vast majority of Pink Martini tracks are about the bipolar beauty of that elusive little thing called love. Luckily, no two songs handle the topic in the same manner.

The titular number off of “Hey Eugene” tackles a brief encounter between two slightly intoxicated strangers at a New York City party. Later on in the album, “Dosvedanya Mio Bombino” chronicles a global romance that stretches from Florence, all the way to, “the naked trees of Gorki Park.” Although that tryst came to an end, lead singer China Forbes insists that the two of them will always have memories of, “snow falling on Red Square.”

I can’t explain why, but any love song that brings up a Kremlin, Gorki Park and Red Square immediately get my seal of approval.

When the band performs live, it’s common to see well over a dozen people on stage, each adding their instrumental touch to the melting pot of sound. It’s this imaginative wonderment to explore new territories of sound and emotion that make Pink Martini such a successful ensemble.

It might sound like this article has been filled with countless phrases of excited hyperbole. Throwing around words like “perfect” should not be done lightly, but I assure you that Pink Martini has earned each and every adjective.

Proving once and for all that there is a higher power, Pink Martini will be coming to The Pabst on Monday, March 17.

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