Neon Neon @ Òran Mór, Glasgow, 11 September

History teachers looking for an innovative way of explaining Cold War politics to bored students could've done worse than dragging them to the Òran Mór tonight to hear Praxis Maxis Perfect. Neon Neon, a collaboration involving original Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys and Californian producer Bryan Hollon, use their second synth-pop album to explore the extraordinary life of Italian publisher and Marxist radical Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. You might not recognise the name, but you’ll sure-as-shit have heard of Dr Zhivago or clapped eyes upon that ubiquitous image of Che Guevara; just two of the cultural behemoths that Feltrinelli helped to unleash on the world before his mysterious death in 1972.

Neon Neon take this unlikely subject and spin it to create musical gold. Rhys has long had a knack of marrying songs with killer hooks to lofty social ideals, while Hollon’s production skill ensures each cut is a lean, three-minute affair, with some gloriously left-field moments. Hoops With Fidel’s chorus of “Communism on a beach/ It’s so peachy/ I could take it home/ And serve it up for my sweet” is just one example of why Neon Neon are entertaining radicals and not dull peddlers of agitprop. Between songs, Rhys, with his inimitable relaxed style, explains some of the contradictions in Feltrinelli’s life. “Even though he was a Communist, he was like Alan Sugar or Richard Branson – he just couldn’t help making money.”

The last quarter of the show is devoted to Stainless Style, Neon Neon's loose concept album on the life of US car magnate John DeLorean – famous for designing the gull-winged car that appeared in the Back to the Future series. It’s here that the few weaknesses in Praxis Makes Perfect are revealed; for all its tight political imagery, it can’t quite match the splendour of Raquel, a technicolour stramash about an imaginary meeting between DeLorean and sixties screen siren Raquel Welch.  When it comes to biographical pop, it seems that the excesses of capitalism will always appeal more than the ideals of communism.