(Falcon St Beats/Creative Vibes)

Sydney-based electronic duo Ouvi Melhor’s curious moniker apparently translates from Portuguese into ‘sounds alright’, but it’s a bit hard to tell whether they might be having us all on. Brent ‘Quincy’ Buchanan and Ben ‘D-Velvet’ White have been working together since the beginnings of the Falcon St Beats collective in 1999, White coming to the partnership after a string of independent hiphop releases.

‘Odiumosis’ is the debut album release from Ouvi Melhor, and it follows on the heels of two years of studio work for Buchanan and White. As well as arranging and composing the electronic elements and beats that became ‘Odiumosis’, Buchanan and White have called upon the talents of jazz performer Yvie Jones and Isadora’s Aimee Nash to contribute vocals, as well as Fatigue’s Rob Chamberlain on guitars and Falcon St co-member Fsard helping out with the beats.

Odiumosis opens with ‘Delicate Blue Thunder’, the first single to be lifted from this album and it bookends the tracklisting, also closing the album in remixed form. Featuring the slightly husky soul-tinged vocals of Bonnie Gilham, it melds trip hop backing with cascades of piano keys and brooding cello. It’s certainly very smooth and accessible stuff that will appeal to anyone who enjoyed Gotye’s recent album of darkly-tinged downtempo beats, but one criticism might be that the vocal seems to sit a bit awkwardly alongside the beats in some places. It flows directly into ‘Anymore’, which opens with crashing sampled beats that slide into a downtempo trip hop chord sequence, over which Yvie Jones’ smooth vocals ride alongside growling synths and string loops.

‘Iisa’ injects a distinct Indian flavour into proceedings, wavering synth chords giving way to flurries of sampled tablas around a core of swelling synths and sampled Panjabi vocal loops. The first instrumental track on the album, it injects a nice undertone of darkness alongside the elements of funk in the beats and bassline, and comes across a bit like Badmarsh & Shri meet The Orb. ‘Waating’ opens with buzzing synths and whispered vocals, Aimee Nash’s chanteuse vocal riding over epic nocturnal brooding beats much in the style of Zero 7’s Sia or one of Massive Attack’s darker moments – there’s also a spidery electric guitar solo that adds some extra tension in there. The rather interestingly titled ‘Introducing CUM II’ is another instrumental track that melds skipping almost tribal sounding hip hop breakbeats with a sinister descending chord sequence, in one of the most out-and-out breaks tinged moments on this album, while ‘If You Ever Found My Handbook’ features White taking the mic as ‘D-Velvet’ to lay down distorted growled rhymes over a melancholy downbeat backing of swooping synths and strings.

‘With Friends Like These’ opens with distant thudding beats and builds over a gently played electric guitar figure into one of the most cinematic and graceful tracks on this album, evoking widescreen imagery over rapidly switching beats in the manner of DJ Krush, while ‘Del Sistema’ takes a loop of a television host saying “I’ll tell you something / and it’s a true story”, placing it under Yvie Jone’s torchsong vocal and some Portishead meets Moloko mournful downbeat backing. ‘Fire In The Whole’ is another of this album’s standout moments, and is an epic downbeat spacious instrumental that scattered delayed-out sampled Dalek vocal snatches and turntable spins amongst cinematic beats and some portentous bendy guitar from Matt Strong, before the remixed version of ‘Delicate Blue Thunder’ closes this album, with much of the overtly electronic elements of the original stripped out in favour of a more acoustic and folky approach.

‘Odiumosis’ is a diverse and engaging debut album from Ouvi Melhor that demonstrates that the duo are adept at tackling a range of styles both vocal and instrumental, while maintaining a downbeat hiphop pulse that permeates through this entire collection. My only criticism would be that on some of the vocal tracks, the vocals sit slightly awkwardly in places against the beats, and that the beats themselves are also a little flat and non-descript in some spots. Apart from these minor reservations, this is an imaginative and accessible album that clearly shows that Ouvi Melhor have the skills for the long haul.

Check out: www.falconstbeats.com