Korallreven

Tracks from this duo have been filtering out of Sweden for well over a year now, building buzz for this, the debut from Marcus Joon and the Radio Dept.'s Daniel Tjäder as Korallreven. Like an increasingly long line of their countrymen, the pair create easy-breezy Balearic soundscapes with voices that float in and out of the foreground. But Korallreven have more pronounced pop ambitions than, say, Air France or jj. An Album turns out to be a rather cheeky title for a collection of individual songs, rather than a cohesive sound or idea. Like so many great producers, Tjäder and Joon recruited some all-star guests to voice their creations, in this case Julianna Barwick and Victoria Bergsman (ex-the Concretes). Unsurprisingly, their contributions are among the album's standouts. An Album doesn't break new sonic ground, but Korallreven borrow from their artier contemporaries and turn it into pure pop bliss, a feat that's far more difficult to pull off than it sounds.