The sun-dappled territory between chill-out electronica and gentle acoustic rock is the destination of Halfset, three Dubliners who wish life meandered at a more elegiac pace.
Opening with a languid banjo loop that sounds like a dragonfly negotiating a marijuana haze, Dramanalog, Halfset’s mannerly and agreeable debut, casts so slight a presence you sometimes forget it is there.
The album trades in mellow beats and furtive melodies. Occasionally something approaching a song threatens but Halfset, never the sort to impose, make a point of retreating before anything as presumptive as structure can be discerned.
The singer Jeff Martin is a member of the ensemble (‘band’ feels too declamatory a label) and Dramanalog echoes his solo material’s cheerful immediacy. On ‘Solar’ there is a lurch towards the floatation-tank vaudeville of Lemon Jelly, while ‘Riversong’ wears its debt to Morr Music like a dreamy grin.
Over its closing lengths, Dramanalog attempts to shake the slumber. ‘Electrolooks’ peddles low-wattage casio-pop, while ‘Laptop Dancer’ careers into alien vistas, touting sampled backing vocals, an urgent riff and a gleaming instrumental hook. In the context of what has gone before, the moment feels almost debauched.
Cumulatively, the album succeeds in its quest for pastoral melancholy. Little of Dramanalog approaches the memorable or distinctive, yet as mood music it has a nicely atmospheric feel that aficionados of the genre will doubtlessly appreciate. The sound of nothing happening has seldom rang out as sweetly or plaintively.