Dntel

In the time since Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello nudged his particular brand of melancholy laptop electronica into the mainstream as one half of the Postal Service, hundreds of copycats have turned up with uninspired variations on his signature sound. Rather than abandon his style on subsequent releases to distance himself from imitators, Tamborello has stepped up his game on this latest release as Dntel, pairing top-drawer indie singer-songwriters such as Jenny Lewis, Grizzly Bear, and Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst with sophisticated tracks that blend synthetic and acoustic textures with subtlety and grace.

Tamborello's compositions are rich with musical detail, but they are never dense or overstuffed. Instead, the tracks flow and wind around gentle vocal melodies that provide ample warmth to counter the chilly tone of the arrangements. Lewis' "Roll On" is especially gorgeous in the way Tamborello's irregular patterns of hums, buzzes, and clicks act as a shifting frame for her sweet, pretty voice and closely miked acoustic strumming. Other tracks, like Mia Doi Todd's delicate "Rock My Boat" or Arthur & Yu's "The Distance," float along on fragile or seemingly nonexistent musical structures, but nevertheless cohere as instantly appealing and emotionally affecting pop ballads.

- Matthew Perpetua
04.24.07

It certainly wasn't a fluke that the Postal Service's Give Up became so popular -- the sleek sounds and vulnerable melodies Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard fused together were a perfect combination for early-2000s indie. For a time, it seemed like the Postal Service might overshadow Tamborello's more venerable experimental project, Dntel, so it's nice to see that he returned to it with Dumb Luck, which arrived six years after the brilliant Life Is Full of Possibilities. It's even nicer to discover that Dntel still has an identity distinct from the Postal Service: Dumb Luck is another lovely, impressionistic collage of dream pop, indie rock, and electronic sounds, graced with vocals by some of indie's most distinctive singers. A little of the Postal Service's immediacy has rubbed off on Dumb Luck's songwriting, but Dntel's sound remains much more abstract, with squiggles, splashes, and scratches of sound popping up everywhere; the electro-calypso of "The Distance" feels like it's melting, bending, and breaking right before your ears. Dumb Luck's whimsical arrangements and production tricks are a lot more involved and ornate than Life Is Full of Possibilities' sound was, but these flights of fancy and intentional imperfections are just as much a part of the songwriting as the lyrics and melodies are. Nowhere is this clearer than on the title track, which opens the album with Tamborello's own sweet, self-effacing vocals set against staticky electronics and acoustic guitars that set the tone for the rest of these bruised and intimate songs. The album's subtly but constantly changing backdrops take listeners on a journey: "To a Fault" roams from plucked acoustic guitars to ebbing and flowing tides of electronic noise made all the moodier by layered vocals courtesy of Grizzly Bear's Edward Droste (indeed, "To a Fault" could have easily appeared on Yellow House). Tamborello's palette of singers plays an even more vital role on Dumb Luck than on Life Is Full of Possibilities, with each track playing to the strengths of its guest star. On "Roll On," Jenny Lewis' girlish twang warms up the self-destructing sounds around her; Lali Puna adds just the right detached elegance to "I'd Like to Know"; and Conor Oberst's groggy mumble underscores the hung-over heartbreak of "Breakfast in Bed." "Rock My Boat," which features Mia Doi Todd's caressing vocals, sounds like a lost '70s singer/songwriter classic shot into space, and comes the closest to the seemingly effortless majesty of Life Is Full of Possibilities. Dumb Luck isn't quite as cohesive as Dntel's debut was, but it is beautiful and carefully crafted enough to show that none of Tamborello's successes are flukes. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide