Tomlab has aligned themselves mainly with idiosyncratic sensitive singer/songwriter types in the past. And Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and Patrick Wolf’s obscuring of their voices via distorted synth torrents and electro theatricality, respectively, has only served to plaintive, oozing humanism. On Landaun, Mantler bears his Elton John-loving, A.M. radio-listening, lounge-crooning soul in a comparatively very naked way. He uses just his voice to belt out sing-along choruses that would make Tom Jones blush, while the production suggests a Miami-bass and slow jam-obsessed Drag City Records engineer jumped ship. An acquired taste, certainly.