It's about time I got around to writing this review. After all, Nuvol I Cadira spent its Christmas break loafing on the sunny shores of my illustrious Top Ten of '99 list. It's still there, and I'm back in Chicago. And I'll tell you what I tell everyone else who makes a claim on my precious time and dwindling resources-- parents, profs, girlfriend, police, the seemingly endless parade of religious do-gooders-- I'm a lazy, lazy man. But for this review, that might be an asset, because Nuvol I Cadira is the laziest, loveliest, most compelling work of down-tempo electronic to surface in recent years, taking its place alongside other plush couch masterpieces like Kruder and Dorfmeister's The K&D; Sessions and Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children.

Very little on Animals on Wheels' (aka Andrew Coleman) Ninja Tune debut, Designs and Mistakes, promised a follow-up of this caliber. Not that the debut doesn't make for a good listen-- jazzy, spastic drum-n-bass with clear affinities to µ-ziq and Aphex Twin-- but Nuvol I Cadira exists on a different plane altogether. It's pure synaesthesia, trading hyperkinetic noise and mad bpm's for a palette of warm colors and varied textures. I swear the effect resembles Van Gogh: intensely visual, crafting art in thick, starry swirls. Sure, the music invites the odd bong-rip, but it does so subtly, without resorting to the tired gestures of druggie electronic-- namely, endless reverb and vast atmospherics. The sound is never liquid.

Nuvol is rather pristine- sounding, always clean and deliberate. On Designs and Mistakes, the beats were squirrely and spaced out; here, Coleman has thinned them into raindrop-light patters. Vibes and glockenspiel brighten the air above, and deft guitar lines (acoustic and electric) worm in and around. Static fuzz crunches like leaves underfoot. The wide array of analog synths seem to hearken back to the experiments of Fuxa's eerie Very Well Organized.

This may not be accidental. Like Savath and Savalas' recent Folk Songs for Trees, Trains and Honey, Nuvol seems to represent a new phase in the evolution of electronic music. Whereas the early practitioners of post-rock seemed to borrow the structures and repetitive aesthetics of electronic music, a new era of electronic artists seem to be turning back to the organics of post-rock for new directions. Nuvol I Cadira is a shy but beautiful wallflower, watching from the outskirts of the dance floor, slowly tapping the beats and whistling the tunes while others grind immodestly at center stage. The overall effect is an aimless wonder. You might feel a little lost, but right now there's really no place else you need to be.

-Brent S. Sirota