Into the Great Wide YonderHFN ***

Most musicians would struggle to record an album in the time it took Anders Trentemøller to arc his career from DJ to producer to electronic maestro. Yet the four years since his debut ( The Last Resort) have proved just as pivotal, since the demand for remixes by the likes of Franz Ferdinand and Depeche Mode has guided Trentemøller towards a mainstream, pop-rock aesthetic. In fact, by playing most of the instruments himself and committing them to analogue tape through vintage gear, the Dane's second album barely resembles electronica at all. Instead, he uses sultry sounding vocalists, among them Guillemot's Fyfe Dangerfield, to blend sweeping compositions with conventional pop structures. The album's finely textured segues build a momentum that, isolated from the context of Trentemøller's versatile career, plays out like a tempestuous film score overshooting its trajectory.

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Download tracks: Sycamore Feeling, The Mash and the Fury