Curtain Call

Beginning with the moody strings/shimmering guitar/random noise zone of the title track, as cryptic and beautiful an instrumental as one could want (and almost bearing a strange, half-sibling resemblance to the extended coda of Prince's "Purple Rain"), Curtain Call finds Midaircondo creating a series of similarly collage-based tracks, where rhythmic pulse and careful repetition take the lead over melodic hooks. Not in itself a new approach in general, but it's fascinating to hear the after-echoes of what long has been a somewhat conventional duo approach — female singer, male electronic boffin, songs that are recognizably "songs" in an older tradition — overtly transformed — both performers are singers and musicians, while there's a clear emphasis on the enveloping music first and foremost, beyond the eight million attempts at late-night jazz that emerged in the wake of Portishead. The hooks as such are just present enough, giving a listener a focus point even as the swirls of the music around it range from the near-chaotic and bass-heavy or, as with the twinkle and drone opening "Silk, Silver and Stone," a minimal prettiness that suddenly transforms into a classically Scandinavian pop chorus, sweet and soaring. One of the few obvious precursors might be Lamb at its most extreme, but even they didn't do anything quite as adventurous as the radical pulse and echo of "Come with Me," vocals lost in the bobbing chaos, or the bubbling loop of "Bringing Me Home" and the crunching beats and layered keening on "Revolve and Repeat," though the rumbling drums of "Glowing Red" might actually be one of the more unexpected tributes to Orange yet released.