In the three years since the breakbeat downtempo soul of 1998's Feng Shui was released, Q-Burns Abstract Message's lone operator Michael Donaldson has changed his allegiance. Invisible Airline is more than a tad influenced by Everything but the Girl's salon-ready deep house. And though the breakbeats of his past aren't entirely absent, they're definitely subdued, and their quelled presence gives this album a maturer, more adult-orientated sound. Gak.

On Feng Shui, Donaldson began to introduce guest vocalists. On this latest album, he's granted access to six guests spread out over eight of the album's twelve tracks. Lisa Shaw-- an apprentice diva who's appeared with Ital Shuur's Milk and Honey project, on DJ Swingsett's Sights Unseen and collaborated with Jay Denes for the sofa-house staple, "Always"-- gets the most exposure. Once the opening track, a lightly congaphonic instrumental called "Hey! Star City," has faded out, Shaw takes over for "Shame."

Emerging from an fx-haze, Shaw sings of leaving a significant other and not caring what she's left behind. Riding Donaldson's ticky-ticky percussion, a Fripp-like guitar charts an ethereal course. Here, Shaw tries to match the star-fondling guitar with hints of Cocteau Twins frontwoman Elizabeth Fraser's celestial phrasing. I grudgingly like "Shame" until a steel drum ensemble takes a "why this? why now?" eight-bar solo. Then, after the incongruous Caribbean interlude, Donaldson falls back to looping, phasing and EQing all the other elements until the allotted six minutes are up. "Shame" will rightfully appear on many second-division Chillin' on Salinas Beach-type compilations. But it will never achieve everlasting fame in the canon of sublime disco.

"Differently" continues Shaw's hardly-winning streak, this time joined by percussionist Eugene Snowden. The track is a ballad written from the POV of someone who's died with a few regrets. "Know there's a vision of my world you'll see/ If I could I would do it differently/ Mmmm..." Shaw's delivery of these potentially poignant banalities is as though she were reciting a bus schedule. I grant she trembles a bit before she mumbles, "Ain't nobody singing/ Don't want to bring it back/ Yeah, no need/ Don't hear nobody singing/ Don't want to bring me back." But trembling is no guarantee of provoking empathy. Meanwhile, percussionist Snowden, though credited, is undetectable. Unless that's him slumped against the patch-cord container, clapping.

Bereft of (or abandoned by) his collaborators, Donaldson fares much better. The instrumental "Amusement Park Heart" returns to the nu-disco of the opening track and proves that Donaldson is a capable motivator of the human glute. Unfortunately, the track doesn't quite reach the same intensity as his early victories, "Enter/Other" or "Bugeyed Sunglasses" (both compiled on 1998's Oeuvre).

The blues duo of slide guitarist Elmo Williams and percussionist Hezekiah Early guest on Donaldson's reworking of "Mother's Dead," the cheery opener of their 1998 album, Takes One to Know One. Suddenly, it seems like Donaldson is after the same crowd that devoured St Germain's "Alabama Blues." Nothing wrong with that goal, except Donaldson forgot that it took the remixing genius of Todd Edwards to turn "Alabama Blues" from stodge to a club necessity.

Politely reverbed and chorused indie guitars hallmark "Innocent," Donaldson's pleasingly blatant grasp for some college radio airtime. Shaw responds, ensuring that her lyrics are cappuccino-frothy and easily digestible by the future lawyers and accountants of America. By comparison, the guitars on "Drifting Off" could be taken as a tribute to Hüsker Dü, until Donaldson quells them so that Shaw can unveil her passable Debbie Harry impersonation.

Eugene Snowden returns for the Oeuvre-ish instrumental "Asa Nisi Masi," and this time, his cowbells and timbales are audible-- until Donaldson's digital percussion overwhelms them. Snowden's also hidden somewhere in the skippy, yuppie-disco mix of "You Are My Battlestar," but again, amidst Donaldson's favored ticky-ticky percussion and delicately two-step bassline, Snowden seems virtually absent. Later, relying on a whammy bar for innovation, Donaldson imbues "This Time" with a threat of grit before Shaw's charm-schooled vocals banish the menace. The track is thus reduced to a club song for couples who agonize about which crèche will most benefit their first-born.

Invisible Airline closes with "Dreamland," a solo Donaldson performance that showcases his talent for downtempo wallpaper. As it opens, the song shows immense promise. The rhythm track is edgy, almost hinting a glitch-style of programming. The bassline, while never dangerous, certainly snarls in an unpleasant manner. But Donaldson soon vanquishes these unsettling elements so that a tinkly trance piano figure can parade his predictable professionalism.

Michael Donaldson doesn't explicitly tell us where his invisible airline travels to, but all the indications are that, rather than making stop-offs in less comfortable, but much more challenging places, Invisible Airline's lone destination is the distant isle of Morcheeba. Seats are always available.

-Paul Cooper, October 1st, 2001