Ellington

This cut-and-paste folk tinged electronic sound collage is a duo that met in New York but now resides in North Adams, Massachusetts. Their first two albums, 2002's "Thought for Food" and 2003's marvelous "The Lemon of Pink," had a certain playfulness which nicely complemented the canonical nature of their innovative music. With "Lost and Safe," it seems that the fun is eschewed in favor of a more puritanical mood, resulting in a release that might seem sterile when compared with the colorful works of their back catalog. However, it is still highly recommended, as it is [still] much more groundbreaking than many other current releases. - Alex Slawson and Herman Snell