Bibio's Brain Bounce

With current electronic music, a glitch in time saves nine. The laptop generation births all manner of sounds, but the hardware’s democratic availability means a new release can be anything from sublime digital exploration to drab Best Buy counter demonstration. Happily, the British electro-pop artist/producer known as Bibio falls squarely in the former camp.

Hailing from West Midlands, England, the man known as Stephen Wilkinsin to his parents (hell, maybe even they call him Bibio) creates kaleidoscopic digital scrambles that tend to wrap around your head like a wet towel on a hot summer’s day. Perhaps his all-encompassing electronic leanings are the result of time spent studying “sonic arts” at London’s Middlesex University. It’s an experimental yet inviting sound aimed more at the heart and head then the feet and groin, though he can certainly craft a convincing beat.

“Mind Bokeh,” Bibio’s fifth album overall and third for Warp, can be sampled at the label’s website, as can previous efforts. The first single, "Excuses," features ethereal vocals atop loping, staggered beats; squiggly distortion tangents, keyboard washes and a bit of kitchen sink percussion. While in no hurry, the track kicks it up at the 2:30 mark with all manner of synthetic keyboard sound making, like an especially creative Depeche Mode “Master and Servant” outtake. A sampling of the rest of “Mind Bokeh” uncovers various amounts of otherworldly ambience, off-kilter funk and wah-wah guitar, electro-pop with hand claps and processed vocals, driving club-ready dance pop, acid jazz revivalism and a splash of soothing house music, all encased in a department store of electronic beats, bleeps, melodies and accents. The album seems less folky than some of Bibio’s earlier work, with guitar noodling making way for keyboard-induced flights of fancy.

Not necessarily a Tron-esque laptop maestro like sometime Warp label mate Flying Lotus and his Low End Theory brethren, Bibio’s more organic talents include guitar, piano, synthesizers and vocals. His singing ranges from warm, blue-eyed soul croon to Kraftwerkish man-machine talk box to frothy summer pop. There’s more to check out at MrBibio. Bibio has done plenty of remixing and his music has been licensed by the likes of L.L. Bean, Toyota, Adult Swim and Amazon.com, so it’s hard to say whether his feelings toward commercialism match the title of one of his earlier albums: “Ambivalence Avenue.”