Disquiet

There’s something a tad antiseptic and just a little maudlin, and yet altogether compelling, about Luxurious, a collection of music attributed to Polina Voronova, said to be a young Russian musician. The album ends with its best piece, in which small bell-like tones repeat over and over against the sort of gauzy synthesis that is the content of much of what came before it. That track, titled “Landing” (MP3), first appeared earlier this year on a compilation set, Arrivals and Departures, released on the Electro Sound netlabel, excentrica.org, that has now brought us, under its Musica Exentrica line, Luxurious (excentrica.org). With it come new favorites, like “This Sky,” in which the melody, so to speak, has the lurching of something slowly spoken rather than sung (MP3), and “Deep Outdoor,” a pointillist lullaby that picks up where “Landing” left off (MP3). One note of thanks to excentrica: kudos for providing the files at 320kbps, double the compressed bit rate of many netlabels. More info at excentrica.org and myspace.com/polinavoronova.

By Marc Weidenbaum