Album Review: Dntel - Aimlessness

Dntel
Aimlessness
Rating: Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It

Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello's 2001 album Life Is Full Of Possibilities was a classic of glitchy, melodic IDM that showcased his unique ability to collaborate with a variety of vocalists and yet still make the songs sound like a unified whole. This talent came to brilliant fruition with his work as The Postal Service with Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard, which perfectly married Tamborello's sleek electronics with Gibbard's wry, heartfelt songwriting. In the interim, we have had one more official release from Tamborello, 2007's Dumb Luck, that attempted to recapture the wonder of Life Is Full Of Possibilities, using another long list of collaborators (Grizzly Bear, Conor Oberst, and Lali Puna) but somehow falling just short of translating into something magical. Not that Dumb Luck was an inferior album from Tamborello, it just lacked the highs that he had previously found. In a way, his latest album Aimlessness seems to be a reaction to that, choosing to focus more on instrumentals and less on vocal collaborations, only working with Baths and Nite Jewel on two tracks. Most classic IDM usually focus on a theme, either through melody or some sort of evocative mood, however, here, living up to its title, Aimlessness strives for and creates a sense of, well, aimlessness. It is a difficult album to get a handle on, as there is nothing here to guide you through its 12 tracks. Once you give in to its ramshackle nature, there are moments of beauty and interest, but for most people, I doubt they will be willing to give it the time needed in order to be won over.

Aimlessness starts off with the rambling instrumental "waitingfortherest II" which features twinkling synths bumping up against glitchy, ghostly buzzes and scrapes. It is a strange opening to the album as it neither announces the direction of the album or even really gives any sort of indication as to what Tamborello has up his sleeve. As the opener fades into nothingness, "Jitters" comes to life, rising from washes of keyboards, bouncy, bloopy synths rise and fall over skittering drum programming. The playful melody is a breath of fresh air, and gets the album off to a more proper start.



"Still" is a haunting collaboration with electronica artist Baths and is almost a perfect marriage between the whooshes of synths, cut up guitars, and Baths' uncharacteristically low key vocal.



The only other collaboration is with Nite Jewel on "Santa Ana Winds," and, while pleasant, it plods along with little to no urgency.



Aimlessness works best when it sticks to less is more. The flow of tracks after "Jitters" and "Still" are brilliant in the use of space and texture. "My Orphaned Son" glides along a minimal beat while snippets of vocal samples float atop stark piano chords, while lonely strings push from underneath.



"Bright Night" takes relatively harsh individual elements and merges them together to create a seamless tapestry of electronic wonder.



"Retracer" leans on a slightly funky bass line, while a bank of analog synths burble along before jumping into the almost incongruous thumping keyboard chords and violins of "Puma," whose rhythms get more and more insistent.



From these creative and evocative tracks, Aimlessness truly loses its way, living up to its title a little too handily. Instrumental "Trudge" is exactly as its title suggests, all clogged beats and meandering keyboard lines. A completely unnecessary ambient remix of "Jitters" under Baths' ambient side project name Geotic is pretty but doesn't improve on the original. And "Doc" is basically a minimal techno track that listlessly interjects synth drones over a repetitious drum program. Closing track "Paper Landscape" is by far the biggest anomaly on Aimlessness. Haunting woodwinds and analog synths wind up from darkness to circumnavigate one another, but never really coalesce into something transcendent.

Aimlessness is not a disaster by any stretch of the imagination but neither is it on par with the practically perfect Life Is Full Of Possibilities. Tamborello seems torn between doing more experimental, instrumental pieces and more electro-pop pieces a la his work with Ben Gibbard, and, as such, we are left with a somewhat confused collection of tracks. I admire his willingness to try and come to terms with this push and pull, but this restlessness comes across as more unfocused than challenging.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.