After Parties I & II - Dntel

After Parties I & II

Dntel
Sub Pop Records.


SCQ Rating: 80%

Whenever straightforward pop is abandoned, motives get questioned. In the case of beatsmith Jimmy Tamborello, who with Postal Service essentially modernized pop in a way that continues to unfold in synthesized, starry-eyed indie acts today, stepping back from the vocalized (shudder…) “indie-tronica” which has been his meal-ticket may seem almost snobbish or ungrateful. But only to the fickle purists among Postal Service fans, who’ve sampled a few highlights from 2007’s Dumb Luck but ignored Dntel’s glorious Life Is Full Of Possibilities. Us longtime fans will view After Parties I & II as wistful steps back toward Tamborello’s roots, when instrumental beats and coy melodies manifested into soothing transmissions that brimmed with possible directions. Back to when the absence of Ben Gibbard was not missed.

Without drifting so far back into Tamborello’s past that we revive his earliest, Aphex-indebted work, ‘Fear Of Corners’ (from Life Is Full Of Possibilities) is perhaps the best point of comparison linking After Parties to Dntel’s past. Okay, so that 2000-era track’s beats don’t align themselves as briskly and immediately as After Parties’ often 4/4 rhythms do. And these new tracks feature more overt melodies than that subdued rumination, usually bending around and warping inside out. Yet it’s Tamborello’s playfulness – which at best tinkered beneath his later, vocalist-laden work – that reestablishes its borderless parameters, finding an upbeat but wholly sentimental horizon over the title-track’s long haul. It’s a thrilling start, initially peppered by staccato snippets of melody before finding its nostalgic center, and following tracks ‘Lindsey’ and ‘Soft Alarm’ retain the same bouncy appeal; the former gravitating from textural moods into a micro-beat cascade that approaches M83-styled emoting, the latter a sleep-deprived haunt evoking the serenity of empty streets at 3am in the dead of winter.

After Parties II digs deeper into Tamborello’s desire to soundtrack the pulse-slowing relief that comes post-euphoria. Concise tracks like ‘Flares’ and ‘Peepsie’ dutifully maintain the dance rhythms but the melodies have sunken in, reverting to bass undercurrents and bubbling harmonics. By the time ‘Hits Line’ files through with its codeine-steeped trance, Dntel’s trajectory – split over two 12” EPs and four sides of vinyl – becomes increasingly nocturnal. A late second wind in ‘Aimless’ motivates the record’s back-end from falling asleep with misshapen synths and a feel-good beat before ‘Leed’ dims the lights with a driving but pillowed closer of moody restraint.

Let’s not underscore the importance of Postal Service’s Give Up strictly on the point that its scope is terribly played out almost a decade after it set the standard. Having provided Sub Pop with its second highest sales of any release – outsold only by Nirvana’s Nevermind – Give Up has earned Dntel the right to release just about anything on the revered label. That clause shouldn’t enter the equation given the resplendent quality within After Parties I & II, but I fear it has. Several months after its untimely release in December 2010, the dual records haven’t so much as gathered an exclamation mark riddled fanboy review on Amazon, much less the critical notice it deserves. Maybe there was no way Tamborello could retreat from such a stratosphere of success without causing a universal shrug among the hipster elite. Or perhaps introducing a Postal Service-like mentality to Dntel’s universe, as he did on Dumb Luck, forced longtime fans to look elsewhere. In any case, After Parties I & II affirms Dntel as more than a studio collaborator hunched over someone else’s lyrics, and restores his image as a tuneful composer still very capable of creating a swoon on his own.


After Parties by Dntel

Early Works For Me If It Works For You II - Dntel

Early Works for Me if it Works for You II

Dntel
Phthalo/Plug Research.

SCQ Rating: 74%

Life is Full of Possibilities was an important record of its time and for its listeners. Coveted by electronica fans and celebrated by indie-followers, the disc was both an underground sensation as well as a curious prologue to Jimmy Tamborello’s later fame in the Postal Service. By the grace of the music gods, Life is Full of Possibilities was pushed further from knowledge despite Tamborello’s mainstream attention, where it has flourished as the late-night, laptopia recording that birthed a gorgeous fusion later slandered ‘indie-tronica’. After Give Up’s worldwide jaunt and Dntel’s star-studded Dumb Luck, it seemed this small masterpiece would sit in limbo between his earlier, unavailable releases and his popular recent work. Earlier this year, however, Phthalo Records thankfully shed light on Tamborello’s cloudy origins with this triple-disc collection of Dntel’s first two previously out of print albums, as well as the unreleased groundwork that would one day form the landmark Life is Full of Possibilities.

Although Something Always Goes Wrong was released two years after Early Works For Me If It Works For You, it is audibly Dntel’s debut. Signs arrive early on ‘In Which Our Hero Finds a Faithful Sidekick’; a sleek track of now-predictable big-beat electronica that would’ve absolutely destroyed me back in 1994. ‘In Which Our Hero is Decapitated By the Evil King’ plays the same heavy-handed cards but in reverse, as the dark moodiness of ‘… Faithful Sidekick’ is now an ascending melody of epic proportions, tossed liberally with where-were-you rave-synths. Oh and about that decapitation thing, don’t bother: the real story to Something Always Goes Wrong is finding those early tracks where Tamborello gets it right. The accomplished soundscapes boasted on ‘In Which Our Hero Begins His Long and Arduous Quest’ and some generous atmospheres on the dreamy and well-titled ‘In Which Our Hero Falls Under a Spell’ make apparent that Tamborello was well on his way to perfecting his cerebral sense of space, that innocent use of melody. Whether Something Always Goes Wrong bears its amateur tags or not is pretty irrelevant considering electronic music has progressed fifteen years since this EP’s initial release, so it’s better ventured as a curiosity, not a contender.

Listening to Something Always Goes Wrong as Dntel’s first breath is the authentic story after all, recorded first but shelved for almost six years - Early Works For Me If It Works For You, Dntel’s first official release, arrived in the meantime - after an initial label deal collapsed. And it’s a sizeable advantage for those of us who came to the party late, since early Dntel fans who followed closely were the ones who incidentally heard these releases in the backwards order. In any case, the mix-up is a blessing for this package, which displays Tamborello’s talents sprouting on the second disc. From opener ‘Loneliness is Having No One To Miss’, which bounces with complex beat programming to the faraway layers of ‘Fort Instructions’, Early Works For Me If It Works For You is instilled with a graduate’s level of technical proficiency. While slower meditations like ‘Curtains’, with its plodding percussive gears, and the airborne helium-bubbles of ‘High Horses Theme’ interest me the most, I can’t ignore this record’s obvious Aphex Twin influence. ‘Danny Loves Experimental Electronics’, ‘Pliesex Sielking’ (god, in name alone) and many other tracks are indebted to Richard D. James’ gawking compositions, and while their disorienting nature fails to compliment Tamborello’s instincts, he plays the patsy with unflinching dedication. Hell, he even concocts a hybrid formula for both styles with ‘Sky Pointing’ and ‘Casuals’; looping Richard D.-inspired beats and quixotic, dreamy keys, Dntel convincingly morphs into Aphex Twin-lite… something that, even today, I’d wager there’s a decent market for.

This triple-disc bundle is a quantifiably rare listening experience, no surprise there. Yet what justifies some spotty, out-of-print albums and a demo-disc as worthwhile endeavors is how they grow into each other; with Something Always Goes Wrong, we had an undisciplined talent, with Early Works For Me…, a confident, nuanced voice in electronic music, and on Early Works For Me If It Works For You II, a collection of demos from 1998 through 2003, a composer toying with new instruments and subtleties. One of these instruments is indeed Tamborello’s voice, which wouldn’t officially appear until 2007’s Dumb Luck. So for Dntel fans and completists, this is a treasure trove of lost gems and a humble beeline through the man’s Phthalo years. Early Works For Me If It Works For You II may not be essential listening, but it’s enjoyable research nonetheless.

Dumb Luck - Dntel

Dumb Luck

Dntel
Sub Pop Records


SCQ Rating: 68%

Postal Service. There. For all my avid web-murking in search of details to Dntel’s six-year-in-the-making sophomore album, there was no escaping the mention and subsequent comparison to Jimmy Tamborello’s more famous, Ben Gibbard-attached project. What Dumb Luck sounded like, whether the songs were worth listening to or not, seemed far less important than how the album was generally less upbeat, less dance-worthy, and therefore less interesting than that 2003 indietronic phenomenon, Give Up. And even though they’re spot on in their assessment that Dumb Luck is more contemplative, more concerned with deconstructing its song layers than making us want to make out with each other, these people are still morons because they’ve never listened to Life is Full of Possibilities.

While his near-perfect electronic-backing for The Postal Service is certainly his bread and butter, Jimmy Tamborello’s ambitions stretch beyond the average indie-dance DJ. As a constantly recording artist in no less than six acts, one would require a hefty rock to ignore his non-Postal contributions to the American electronic scene. His Plug-Research debut, Life is Full of Possibilities, remains a landmark IDM album, and a far more relevant model for comparison with Dumb Luck.

An immediate break from the past is announced in the opening song and title track, as the layers of noise are ushered in by the vocals of Tamborello himself. Modest yet appropriate, his voice tries to bridge the synthetic swellings and sudden acoustic retreats that never find their groove. The Lali Puna-assisted ‘I’d Like to Know’ also buzzes with promise, but spends the majority of its running time in the warm-up stage. Sadly, it’s a condition that reappears several times throughout the following eight star-studded songs; its layering up and tearing apart of sonic details approaches renders many of these songs flawed, despite some impressive moments abound.

Direction seems to be the key with this album, and luckily, Tamborello offers as many compelling jewels as unsure explorations. ‘To A Fault’ should’ve been where this album started; staccato guitar strums on pace with some sophisticated beats, keyboard flourishes and a far-off forest of vocals contributed by Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste. ‘Roll On’ is further proof that Jenny Lewis’ songwriting ambition may be on cruise-control, yet she watches her back by sounding as enchanting as ever. Finally, Conor Oberst delivers ‘Breakfast in Bed’; the emotional punch of the album and a worthy second listen for anyone who swore they hated Bright Eyes the first time around. Possibly the best morning-after-a-one-night-stand song ever, Oberst coos gently as if his fling is still sleeping on the pillow next to him.

From there, Dumb Luck closes with ‘Dreams’, an instrumental which proves Jimmy can still carry the torch on his own. Due to some exciting contributions, the amount of hired help on this album doesn’t bother me. I’m more skeptical about how the album would’ve sounded (and if it had been finished at all) without them.