ii "oho"

• Words: Wyatt Williams
• Label: Feral Media

Melbourne-based ii's cleverly titled MySpace page suggests that this duo's debut album, landlakes, draws its name from a combination of Timberland and Justin Timberlake, but ii isn't writing a club banger anytime soon. Rather, the two-member outfit's songs fit closer with the quiet, atmospheric sound collages of Growing or Cloudland Canyon, mixing complex rhythms with field recordings, guitar-loop trickery, and modular synthesis. Jon Tjhia and Alex Nosek still find a way to wring out some memorable melodies from the tracks, and make some unlikely and refreshingly abstract pop at the same time. Wyatt Williams