With his self-titled debut, Deluxe label head Mike Martinez has created one of my favorite albums of this year. Pity about the name, though. Electric Birds? I can only think of these creatures perched on power lines along Electric Avenue. And below them, in the street, there is violence. Good God.

But I forget about the unfortunate name of this project when I hear the sound-- a varied, intricate and logical electronic concoction most notable for its sheer listenability. Like Nobakazu Takemura, Electric Birds realize that one noble goal of experimentation is to arrive at something pretty. There's a warmth and beauty to Electric Birds that's uplifting, despite the presence of elements that lump it in with the sometimes harsh glitch scene.

What a concept, The Glitch Scene. The phrase conjures images of bookish Markus Popp perpetrating with a wallet chain. But there's no denying Oval's influence on "Hyper Elevation," a gentle, fluttering, fast-forward film where we're only allowed to see every eighth frame. And unlike Popp, Electric Birds aren't afraid to fold some subtle drum programming into the mix, which helps to guide the track from one section to the next. Similar drum programming provides a fascinating contrast on "Parallelogram," a clear homage to Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians that far surpasses anything on Reich Remixed.

Martinez received some help here from Johnny-on-the-spot production team Matmos (their finest release, The West, was released on Deluxe), which brings a focus on capturing and manipulating live sounds. "Actual" instruments (if you like) are scattered all over this record, and the tension of hearing them rub their sweaty selves against the laptop's motherboard makes for a compelling listen. The opening track, "Windy Hill," features shimmering xylophone clusters hanging over a bed of static; a simple acoustic guitar figure in "Acoustic Orange" attains a placid East Asian quality through looping; a wheezy upright piano tiptoes over an electronic drone in the closing "Lost Leaders." The similar quality of such juxtapositions give a fluid, organic feel to what is ultimately a very diverse album.

Evidence of this variety is the presence of "Invisibility," a gorgeous pop song with vocals by Martinez. It's a slow, spacy number with reverberating guitars, piano and organ, orbiting somewhere in the vicinity of a great Duster track. Nice to hear such a straightforward pop statement nestled comfortably next to adventurous electronics. The one-track version of the spectrum comes on the guitar-heavy "Finger & Stroke," which starts out like Windy & Carl with a drum beat, slips past Flying Saucer Attack into Fennesz, and ends as a cloud of Merzbowian manipulation. Volume here is a must.

-Mark Richard-San