With one or two exceptions, downtempo is arguably the most self-satisfied, unengaged, thoroughly complaisant genre in existence. And were it not for the inclusion of the final track, "Tiens," Stefan Hantel's second album, Great Delay, would comfortably fit this profile. From the opening bossa wiggles of the painfully Euro "L'Intro," we get an unambitious trundle through the pat conceits of the genre. "Inside" pines to be on the next Seal album, or featured in a tender/revelatory scene in a Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle. Out of a bland noodle of electric piano vamps trips the lightly Latin, clumsily claved "Backwood." All serious Salsa devotees will gnaw their knuckles at the ham-fisted appropriation of signature elements.

Things improve with the pop-disco-house of "Crystal," which is propelled by a St Germain-style inclusion of a sampled bluesman stating, "Damn right." Still we wait for a track to pique our curiosity. But cod reggae beckons us first. Though Hantel probably intended "Believe" to be his crucially sunken-cheeked homage to Massive Attack, the track exists in the mid-space between Nelly Furtado and Musical Youth. Vocalist Efrat Ben-Zur has an overly breathy, near-Kahimi Karie jailbait quality tempered by a slightly Louise Rhodes bonkersness which ill suits a song about existential doubt, fidelity, and the unstoppable approach of the Grim Reaper ("will there be friends when you die?").

"Want" is another sub-Seal coffeetable track destined for a Kruder and Dorfmeister rework. Hantel attempts to fuse downtempo's jazzy Rhodes keyboards with the fractured beatwork of Timbaland and two-step on "Delay." Later, another Nelly Furtado clone blinks into existence for "The Baby," which boasts such baffling lyrics as, "We could have had ourselves for breakfast but there's no turning back/ Rent a one-world castle with electric walls."

Until the final track, the sublime "Tiens," the predictable repertoire of couch beats, modish instrumentation, and more-eager-than-proficient vocalists constricts Great Delay into being just another prêt à porter accessory for cosmopolitan yuppies.

But Great Delay finishes in ineffable glory. "Tiens" is so essentially different from the rest of the album that the unwary might suspect a manufacturing error. It's a beatless torch song that sublimely combines an Edith Piaf sound-a-like with the loneliness of left-hand piano chords, and a counter-melody performed by a solitary whistling-for-company night-wanderer. After these elements merge into a rainy, empty Parisian boulevard, accordion swells add to the delicate pathos, and we're utterly there-- walking beside the lonely, passing by bistros long closed for the night, storm drains gorging themselves on the downpour, and alleyways long since abandoned by soaked trysting couples.

The originality of "Tiens" marks it out as Hantel's shot at distinction-- he imbues the five-minute track with an uncommon humanity and honesty. In my opinion, only the Broadway Project's genre-confounding Compassion LP exceeds "Tiens" in this regard. Hearing this song after the pre-set drudges of Great Delay's preceding twelve tracks, I'm shaken. Downtempo's bungled attempts at "invisible soundtracking" have suddenly come to something. Hantel's delicate and deliberate setting of mood and scene fleetly transports our imaginations. If Hantel has any desire to distinguish himself from the swarms of hacks tossing off below-100-bpm slurry, he'll explore the third-eye cinematic drama of "Tiens." Only then will he confound expectations and leap clear of the maw of complaisance.

-Paul Cooper