L'Altra

Based in Chicago, L'Altra is Ken Dyber's pet project, which includes vocalists Joe Costa and Lindsay Anderson and Eben English (also in Del Rey). The EP L'Altra (Aesthetics, 1999) introduced a sublimely elegant fusion of pop, jazz and classical music. The album Music Of A Sinking Occasion (Aesthetics, 2000) collecs ten madrigals adorned with small chamber arrangements and played with a lazy, renaissance grace (Little Chair, Lips Move On Top Of Quiet, Room Becomes Thick). The effect is a transposition of atmospheric/intellettual pop music to another temporal dimension, as if the Penguin Cafè Orchestra played Low's songs.

In The Afternoon (Aesthetics, 2002), featuring the ubiquitous Fred Lonberg-Holm, is equally engaging. Lush and oneiric soundscapes accompany the dual vocal harmonies (Traffic, Certainty, Black Arrow, Moth in Rain). The (too brief) instrumental Goodbye Music that closes the album could easily be the centerpiece of a more ambitious piece of music.

Different Days (Hefty, 2005) is another parade of lullabies for themes of alienation and atmospheres of decadent spleen (Sleepless Night, So Surprise), but the music is far less enticing than on previous outings.