(Darla)

www.darla.com

In 2004 ambient guru Harold Budd announced that Avalon Sutra would be his swan song, but in the time-honored tradition of musicians who publicly declare their retirement, he didn't stay away for long. Since his return to the studio, Budd has worked primarily with two artists: Robin Guthrie (releasing a brace of albums with the former Cocteau Twin in 2007) and Clive Wright, with whom he recorded last year's A Song for Lost Blossoms and now Candylion.

Budd has an extensive history of collaborations with musicians boasting diverse, innovative creative pedigrees: Brian Eno, Hector Zazou, Bill Nelson, Andy Partridge, John Foxx and Jah Wobble, to name just a handful. In such company, Wright -- best known for his tenure with the rather flaccid '80s soft rockers Cock Robin -- might appear a peculiar choice. Nevertheless, Candylion, like its predecessor, is unmistakably the work of two artists on the same wavelength, a poised, quietly meditative dialogue between Wright's serpentine, Frippertronic-style guitar textures and Budd's minimalist piano melodies and gauzy, amorphous synth washes.

"Ambient Music," according to Eno, "must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." Judged by those criteria, Candylion is slightly uneven -- occasionally falling on the ignorable side of Eno's equation -- but, for the most part, it successfully accommodates seemingly contradictory active and passive modes of listening: the album's most memorable material works as a non-intrusive component of the environment (as agreeable background music) while at the same time it's substantive enough to be the exclusive focus of attention -- an aural experience in which the listener can wholly immerse him/herself.

Candylion marks a slight departure from A Song for Lost Blossoms insofar as it feels more concise and focused. Not only are the tracks generally shorter, but the incorporation of elements such as acoustic guitar, harp and percussion tends to add more definition and structure to Budd and Wright's open-ended, drifting soundscapes.

The simplest and most understated pieces are its strongest: for example, "The Bells," with its delicate, sedate East Asian ornamentality; "She Slipped Through the Door," which balances drones and melody to attain an austere majesty; and "In the Midst of Life," which subtly builds a hymnal gravitas with its otherworldly choral arrangement. "Eaux d'Artifice" is the album's tour de force as Wright loops and weaves his sinuous, fluid guitar lines around Budd's slow-falling droplets of melody.

The only weakness here derives from obtrusive rhythmic elements that render a couple of tracks rather ordinary and generic. "Sunday After the War," for instance, has a shuffling drum beat, which jars with its otherwise calm flow; moreover, sequencing this track as the album's opener gets the proceedings off to a less than compelling start. Elsewhere, a naggingly busy lite-jazz beat brings "Beautiful Intruder" perilously close to New Age schmaltz.

But in the broader context of the album, these are fairly minor quibbles.

Budd has talked self-deprecatingly about his rather limited musical vocabulary, implying that his signature amalgam of minimalism and melody is perhaps more accident than design. Either way, although the lexicon of his sonic idiom might not be especially extensive, Budd rarely fails to infuse his work with a wealth of moods and emotional resonances that belies his supposed limitations. On the whole, this collaboration with Wright continues to make that point.

Standout Tracks: "Eaux d'Artifice," "She Slipped Through the Door," "The Bells" WILSON NEATE