Sub Pop Records

giantlawnmower sez: I went with my dad to the library to borrow loads of CDs and I grabbed Nirvana just because I... (on A Form of Paying Attention November 2009 )
fuelberth75 sez: I don't even know how to begin. I have read all these great posts and have to admit that each... (on A Form of Paying Attention November 2009 )
joelbnice sez: I was 10 when Nevermind came out and at the time I thought SLTS was a little gimmicky. I didn't... (on A Form of Paying Attention November 2009 )
CousinWalter sez: The year was 1995. I was all of 13 and in the 7th grade. I had just heard "Weird Al"s... (on A Form of Paying Attention November 2009 )
unklekippy sez: Who the fuck is this "Nirvana" everybody keeps talking about? Got any more of those The Legend 7"s? (on A Form of Paying Attention November 2009 )
Pedgalad sez: i came rather late into the grunge underground or whatever you would like to call it. i found this album... (on A Form of Paying Attention November 2009 )

Jimmy Tamborello likes to take his time. Thirteen years after starting to work under the Dntel moniker and almost six years after releasing his last Dntel full-length, Life is Full of Possibilities (Plug Research), he has painstakingly built and birthed Dumb Luck, an album five years in the making.

Thick with Tamborello’s signature electronic washes and genius beat placement, Dumb Luck is an album lyrically as much about human distance as connection. With vocal contributions from friends Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley), Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear), Valerie Trebeljahr and Markus Acher (Lali Puna), Mia Doi Todd, Grant Olsen and Sonya Westcott (Arthur & Yu), Andrew Broder (Fog), Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) and Christopher and Jennifer Gunst (Mystic Chords of Memory), the organic instrumentation by Chris Hathwell (drummer, Moving Units) and Paul Larson (guitarist, The Minor Canon) is manipulated, chopped and pasted amidst Tamborello’s skittish beats, house clicks, organ washes and dreamily pixelated symphonies. The result is at once understatedly epic, ethereal and concrete.

Like Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake (Plug Research), his 2006 release under the name James Figurine, and The Postal Service’s 2003 release Give Up, Tamborello meticulously labored over each element of his bit-crushed compositions in his LA home studio. Fueled by a short attention span, his distaste for working on any one project for extended periods of time meant that this was, like most worthwhile things, a process fraught with redefinition and constant change.

After all, producing, engineering and songwriting initially started out as pre-teen after-school fun for Tamborello, whose early interests were breakdancing music and ‘80s techno pop (and later the sonic tampering of Skinny Puppy and Aphex Twin). In the mid-to-late ’90s, he played in the post-hardcore band…