Decentertainment [Audio CD] We

One of the more approachable groups to emerge from Brooklyn's illbient scene, We manage the neat trick of standing outside the many subgenres they draw from while having a deep insider's knowledge of each of them. On their third album, Decentertainment, We's three kings, Lloop, Olive, and Once11, move at a deliberate pace--trip-hop and dub tempos are the order of the day, with the jungle beats filling in the spaces every now and then. But it's an event-filled album, shifting texture, mood, and rhythm as constantly as a really bad prog-rock record or a really great Cecil Taylor concert. On the sublime "Out for Now," for instance, a jungle-style hoover bassline meets up with a breakbeat structure that's looser and jauntier than what jungle usually offers these days, collides with a manipulated Middle Eastern wail, and gives way to a single sweet guitar chord echoed over and over again, before trailing into a lovely ambient swirl. Group efforts are the exception rather than the rule in the bedroom-studio world of electronica, and Decentertainment--constructed by three guys who inspire and edit each other to fine effect--reminds you why that's a shame. --Jeff Salamon