Mid/Air

Some formulas never get tiresome, and this is one of them: a sweet, gentle female voice singing winsome melodies over edgy, jittery, funky beats. Try to ignore the fact that Dive Index claims to take its inspiration from mid-20th century architecture, and also ignore press-release blather about how the music is "less written than sculpted" and how the songs "build themselves into the environment and rest there with staunch elegance." The fact is that these are very fine electro-pop songs, nothing more and nothing less, and at their best they invoke the kind of spacious and multi-layered lushness that was once Cocteau Twins' stock in trade, while at others they bring to mind a much less dour version of Massive Attack. Mid/Air starts off powerfully, with the ethereally lovely "For Centuries" and an acoustic-guitar-meets-glitch-machine pastoral called "Between Sky and Sea." Things get more clever shortly thereafter with "The Promise Room," on which glitchy rhythmic elements seem to invade both the backing track and the vocals, making it sound like something must be wrong with your CD player. "Water in Our Hands" gets a bit tedious, but the overlapping vocal tracks and dubby effects of "Screen to Screen" work beautifully and "Come Tell Me" is heartbreakingly dark and beautiful. The album ends with a slow, gelatinous number titled "The World Is Kind," on which a pretty melody and gorgeous strings wind gently around a high-pitched and panicky breakbeat. Pretentious? Yes, but it works. Very highly recommended.