the LUNA music word 'em up: HOW TO DRESS WELL

There is something to be said for a guy whose debut album contains liner notes sincerely expressing his love and appreciation for family and friends in an age where most acts are content with little more than a faded Polaroid picture gracing the inner sleeve of their cds and albums, if even that. It's an honest gesture entirely lacking in irony or emotional distance, and it's within that context that one should approach How To Dress Well, the one man project of Tom Krell.

A once over of Krell's musical tastes, which vacillates between the likes of The Cocteau Twins and Alicia Keys, while incorporating techno and hip-hop in between, gives you a pretty good idea on paper of what How To Dress Well sounds like. The fact that Krell is able to seamlessly combine gauzy ambient with rhythm & blues in equal measure so successfully is more than a minor feat that has to be heard, because only after listening to "Love Remains," will you realize how downright astonishing it all really is.

Consider album opener "You Hold The Water," which begins with a sample from Todd Hayne's "Safe" manipulated to sound darker and more demonic than it actually is before giving way to a seamless lo-fi mixture of ambient, r&B, folk and Burial-like dubstep. That's impressive enough, but when Krell throws in a refrain from "Idumæa," the 250-year-old Methodist hymn revived recently as the centerpiece of Current 93's "Black Ships Ate The Sky," it's evident that Krell is working on a very different and much deeper level than many of his peers. Or, take a track like "Lover's Start," with slow R&B instrumentation that sounds like it is coming up through the earth via a transistor radio, and layered falsetto vocals whose origin sound a bit more celestial, Krell is able to create a soundscape that is familiar as well as ethereal and distant. What results from the clashing of these two seemingly opposite spheres of influence is a narcotic groove that makes for one of the most gorgeous listening experiences of the year. Imagine Sigur Rós cutting a lo-fi soul record and you'll begin to approximate the hip-swaying atmospherics present here.

It doesn't hurt that Krell's voice is a dead ringer for Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. A lot has been made of that comparison, and I can find no fault in it here. Some tracks, like "You Won't Need Me Where I Am Goin'" do sound a lot like Bon Iver. I mean that as a massive complement, because unlike so many Bon Iver wannabes, who just pick up an acoustic guitar and attempt to channel Vernon's backwoods ambiance, Krell actually carries within him the same heartfelt emotionality and soul (and talent) that Vernon does, and which makes Vernon more than just a dude with a beard and a guitar and some pretty songs. Of course, Krell can't help that his voice just happens to sound so much like Vernon's, and I have the feeling that if you were to ask him about it, while he would probably take it as a complement, I think his intention is more along the lines of D'Angelo than Vernon, as tracks like the slow grooving "My Body" and "Ready For The World" indicate. Regardless, it is that blurring of those boundaries into something wholly unique, heartfelt and beautiful that make "Love Remains" one of 2010's greatest treasures.

"Suicide Dream 2"

suicide dream 2 – how to dress well from How to Dress Well on Vimeo.