- A slow, steady beat fades in, intermingled with a strange, backwards filtered guitar. The first track, Maternal Moon, from Dorval & Devereaux’s self-titled album sounds like a pack of aliens chilling out with some native American Indians around a campfire. It’s oddly comforting; as if the song transports you to a safe place only you know about.

Dorval & Devereaux is the collaboration between Crystal Dorval of her dream pop moniker White Poppy, and Beau Devereaux from his project Samantha Glass. The two work effortlessly together creating something that feels familiar but also new and exciting. Dorval’s delicate pop melodies combine with Devereaux’s odd mechanical beats to produce a smoky, ambient fantasy world.

You will find no catchy lyrics here – the entire album is comprised of vocal intonation dripping with reverb, delay and phasing effects. There was very little – if any – blending of Dorval’s vocals with Deveraux’s. Each track seems to change vocalist as if a mad scientist was in the background flicking a switch between the two songwriters. I so wanted to hear the two of them weave a vocal web of ecstasy, but was sadly left unfulfilled in this regard. However, there is enough ambient noise created with guitars, loops and other odd anomalous sounds to overshadow the lack of vocals.

This album's success in creating moods is vast; it’s the kind of music that can wrench your own mood out of your control, forcing you into a calm meditation or by awakening the disquiet within you. A fantastic example of this is the track, Early Morning Rides. It’s a perfect accompaniment to your own dawn adventure. The groove of the bass provides the brick foundation on which the rest of the ambient layers are built. It really does provoke a sensation of an early autumn morning; the sun is just beginning to rise, birds waking up and that brisk new day chill; an absolutely appropriate soundtrack for that morning walk or bike ride.

Fast forward to Attached Legs; its lolling synth invokes a sense of dread, as the operatic vocals seem to be a warning, tidings of an impending apocalypse. This freight of doom is delivered towards the end, as new layers weigh down, one over the top of another to finally drown out and fizzle to the death.

Dorval & Devereaux’s work together is well orchestrated: a melting pot of ethereal mood swings and ghostly effects pulled together with a plastic beat machine. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but somehow, it does. It’s both thought provoking and physical, libidinal: you should listen to it as part of bodily action -while going for a run or soaking in a bathtub. So sit back in those bubbles, relax and give Dorval & Devereaux a spin.

- Linda Finlay.