Dntel

After Parties 1 EP

Jimmy Tamborello has spent much of the last 10 years in collaboration mode. As one half of the Postal Service, he and Ben Gibbard struck a deep, resonating chord with thousands of kids who wished they could dance and used lines from “Some Great Heights” in their mash notes. On his own, recording under the name Dntel, Tamborello has invited everyone from Mia Doi Todd and Jenny Lewis to the men of Grizzly Bear and Mystic Chords Of Memory to add vocals and shades of color to his electro-pop templates.

With the release of this new EP, and its companion piece After Parties 2, Tamborello is finally sticking his neck out on the line with a lot more confidence. Thank goodness he did. The three songs on this first volume show a marked improvement on the sound that he has spent the last decade cultivating. Even free of vocals—these are all instrumentals—the songs are wrought with emotion and incident.

What stands out even more is the influence of the early-’80s synth explorations by both British and German artists. The nighttime driving epic “Lindsey” bubbles and pops with the steely rumble of groups like Cluster providing the roadmap. “After Parties,” the rousing opening track, draws a direct line between the work of Sheffield, U.K., production team British Electronic Foundation and the sun baked sound of fellow artists from the L.A. area like Daedelus.

Working with others has obviously paid off for Tamborello as he treats this trio of songs as if they were verse/chorus/bridge/chorus-style creations. He doesn’t want you to add your own lyrics and melodies to them; rather, he wants you to follow the narrative that he's spelling out with each ringing chord and minimalist beat. These songs swell and recede, move and lay still with a precise flow and direction. If this is the soundtrack to an after party, it is one that we should all hope to be invited to.

Sub Pop http://www.subpop.com

“After Parties”