Pitchfork

The title of Dntel's third album is really ringing true these days. Who'd have thought that our lives would bear witness to bioterrorism and mass destruction? Even the album cover tacitly cautions against optimism. Yes, life might bring you a million dollar check one day, but as symbolized by the ambulance on Life Is Full of Possibilities' artwork, the envelope could be smeared with anthrax spores.

Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello couldn't have known of present hazards when he put together this uniformly superb album; what he did know was that it was time to progress as an artist. Dntel's previous albums-- released on the maverick Californian extreme IDM label, Phthalo-- showcased Tamborello's mastery of the \xB5-Ziq form. Both Early Works for Me If It Works for You and Something Always Goes Wrong are heavily indebted to Mike Paradinas' askance appreciation of melody and spastic beat programming. Tamborello's transition from slinging "Eno-core" bass bricks in his first band (the Los Angeles-based ambient pop band Strictly Ballroom) to creating exemplary IDM appeared effortless. And though Something Always Goes Wrong didn't demonstrate much desire to explore uncharted sonic realms, it remained an engaging and rewarding listen.

But with Life Is Full of Possibilities, Tamborello separates himself from the tired, poor and huddled masses of bedroom programmers. Enlisting members of the West Coast indie elite, the album is a matchless combination of scratchy indie rock and post-Oval electronics. What impresses most about the record, beyond the strength of the songs, is Tamborello's willingness to treat his vocalists as he would a synth tone. Most musicians are content to let their guests contribute a couple of lines and leave it at that-- at most, they'll tack on a cheeseball vocoder effect. Tamborello takes it a step further, cutting up and contorting members of Beachwood Sparks, That Dog, and Death Cab for Cutie.

Tamborello crinkles and manipulates vocalist Chris Gunst, the frontman for both Strictly Ballroom and Beachwood Sparks. But this is more than a bassist's revenge on his former band's lead singer. As Gunst sings the first lines to "Umbrella," Tamborello inserts micropauses into the phonemes Gunst utters. When Gunst's nostrum, "You can turn the city upside down if you want to/ But it won't keep you dry," appears for a second time, Tamborello clothes it with a delicate vacuum cleaner sound. On its third appearance, Gunst's voice appears au natural; instead, it's the accompaniment-- a church organ and a swarm of ambience swirls-- that Tamborello alters before a relatively conventional drum machine beat kicks "Umbrella" through the classic-opening-track goal posts.

As superb as "Umbrella" is, it's not a patch on "Anywhere Anyone," a track which features L.A. performance poet and singer/songwriter Mia Doi Todd, who provided the recent Dublab compilation, Freeways, with its best moment: "Digital Version 2.1." In Tamborello, Todd has found her musical soulmate. As she plaintively sings, "How can you love me if you don't love yourself," Tamborello's accompaniment swoons and swoops in its dense coverings, until a tinny xylophone chimes through with the most delicate of melodies and accompaniments. It's similar in effect to the way Björk uses harp lines amid the fuzz and static of Vespertine's glitchier moments.

The drifting aleatoric ambience of "Pillowcase" reminds me of David Kristian's Roomtone sonic sculptures. Sounds waft by or linger barely long enough to register as rhythmic or melodic phrases. "Fear of Corners," in its crackled way, vies with Aaliyah and Timbaland's "Try Again" for most rhythmically obtuse but still mad funky programming. Like "Try Again," "Fear of Corners" is fearful of its inherent groove, and muffles it with smothering ambience. Nonetheless, the insuppressible and awkward beats persist with an Autechre-ish resilience.

Tamborello's partner in the electro-pop act Figurine, Meredith Figurine, takes vocal duties on "Suddenly is Sooner Than You Think." Figurine tries her utmost to match Mia Doi Todd's heartfelt bleakness; instead, she has to settle for matching Dani Siciliano, the serene vocalist of Herbert's masterful Bodily Functions album. This is hardly a major concession, especially given that Tamborello's setting for the song appears to confirm to Matthew Herbert's Personal Contract for the Composition of Music manifesto. The only thing you might miss on this track is a fat beat, but the filigree lyrics and processed accordions would sound really crap with a two-step monster pattern humping away at them. Tamborello, like Herbert, has nobly allowed good taste to dictate his approach, rather than the prospect of a club hit.

The title track begins as another David Kristian-style sound sculpture before transforming into ringing bells conversing with abstract noises that bubble up from the impenetrable deep. As such, Tamborello succinctly and accurately describes life's possibilities becoming actualities. "Why I'm So Unhappy" features former That Dog bassist, Rachel Haden. Haden collaborated with the For Carnation's Brain McMahan (also the ex-frontman of Slint) on the song's lyrics. But despite the track's pedigree, I'm distracted from the lyrics by the beauty of Haden's voice and how Tamborello frames it: in drifting strings and Björkish ambiance. Towards the end of the song, Tamborello forces every element-- Haden's voice, the sparse percussion, and the guitar-- through broken distortion.

However excellent "Why I'm So Unhappy" is, it's eclipsed in brilliance by "(This is) The Dream of Evan and Chan." Death Cab for Cutie's Benjamin Gibbard guests and compliments Tamborello's most melodic, Eno-esque distortions with his wistful lyrics of nostalgia ("He then played every song from 1993/ The crowd applauded/ He curtsied bashfully). Tamborello brings in the sturdy beats that were such a staple of Something Always Goes Wrong, until Gibbard repeats, "Until the telephone started ringing, ringing, ringing off." At this point, the song slows and stills in preparation for the closing instrumental "Last Songs."

Life Is Full of Possibilities confirms that, while possibilities exist in a quantum state of probability, it takes a special person to convert them into certainties. I've only become this ecstatic about one other album this year (Herbert's Bodily Functions), and Life Is Full of Possibilities exceeds even that landmark album. Possibly, it'll have an similar effect on you.