Yearbook 2

Studio's second Yearbook compilation is a collection of their remixes for other artists, rather than their own material, but their transformations are so thorough and their distinctive sonic fingerprints so prevalent that this is as good a place as any to get acquainted with the Swedish duo's lush, languorous style. Indeed, if not for the mötley assortment of vocals that occasionally intrude into the mix, ranging from Shout Out Louds' indie pop wispiness (on "Impossible," the most straightforward inclusion here) to Kylie Minogue's glam diva swelter (on "2 Hearts," an unlikely pairing that makes for a scintillating, revelatory high point), it wouldn't be hard to mistake Yearbook 2 as a more or less unified work by a single artist. As with Studio's original work, the agenda here is all about atmosphere. Whether the starting point is Love Is All's scruffy indie rock or Williams' faithful re-creation of Tangerine Dream's ethereal soundtrack work scarcely matters — it all gets slathered with limpid laser-point guitar lines, washed out, reverberant synths, dubby disco grooves and, most prominently, immaculately crisp acoustic strums. Which is not to say that Studio are insensitive to their source material or that they simply work from a formula, they're just generally more interested in using it as a platform to their own ends. Certainly, they know what sounds they like and they stick with them, but their nuanced complexity and attention to detail, even on a hazy ten-plus-minute instrumental epic like their remake of A Mountain of One's "Brown Piano," is enough to rule out any notion of autopilot. Highest marks, however, go to perhaps the most minimalist offering here: a "version" (really a wholesale refashioning) of Rubies' soul-pop tune "Room Without a Key" which retains only the wordless background coos from the original as window dressing for an airy, hypnotic eight minutes suspended on a drifting, time signature-flouting bassline that feels utterly, impossibly fluid. ~ K. Ross Hoffman, Rovi