DNTEL
Issue #32
Dumb Luck
By Alexa Weibel
Published: June 1st, 2007 | 12:00am
As a duo, Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello made legions of pale, laptop-toting IDM fans fall in love to the tenderly joyous music of Postal Service.
As the orchestrator of Dumb Luck — a collaborative effort with a motley group of musicians — Tamborello’s honeymoon with the limelight has faded. The glitch guru’s notable contributors include Moving Units drummer Chris Hathwell and Bright Eyes crooner Conor Oberst, L.A. chanteuses Jenny Lewis and Mia Doi Todd, and Germany’s indietronic Lali Puna.
Seemingly disillusioned with fame, he weaves more subdued, lacy, delicate symphonies, presumably more relaxed without Gibbard’s joie de vivre. Consequently, this ethereal album embodies what you could jokingly refer to as “penguin music,” evoking imagery of Arctic critters sliding around on moonlit icebergs. With its breathily expressed, soporifically surreal lyrics, Dntel’s Dumb Luck may not be the reason to get up in the morning that Postal Service’s Give Up was, but it is the perfect hopeful, calmly whimsical slumber soundtrack.
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