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In director David Fincher’s 1999 film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s 1996 novel Tyler Durden and company were lucky enough to have the Dust Brothers (known for their groundbreaking work on The Beastie Boys‘ classic Paul’s Boutique LP and their work with Beck) providing the soundtrack for their fictional lives. In need of a suitably cinematic soundtrack of my own this morning, bleary-eyed, I turned to the music of Discuss, a.k.a. Andres Ortiz-Ferrari, a San Juan, Puerto Rico-bred, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based beatmaker, musician and artist.

The music on Discuss’ self-released sophomore LP Aeration Swells is the sort of rich, gritty amalgm of vintage keyboard tones and dirty drums chopped and reconfigured to create a new formula complimented by elements like retro vinyl crackle, samples, ethereal vocals, futuristic electronic twitch-n-glitch and an infusion of live, non-electronic instrumentation, that makes Ortiz-Ferrari worthy of cooking in the Dust Brothers’ lab. It’s got both feet planted firmly to the concrete cityscape of Hip-Hop and Electronica/IDM, and it’s fingertips are dusty from flipping through the treasures unearthed via vinyl archeology, but it’s head is in the clouds of far-out psychedelia, spacey Prog-Rock and experimental Indie/Alt-Rock.

Listening to Aeration Swells I’m reminded all at once of the genrelessness of Dust Brothers collaborator Beck, the contemporary progressiveness and adventurousness of Radiohead, Blogarhythms favorites Hot Chip’s unclassifiability and mechanical soulfulness, and the gently hiccuping laptop rhythms as well as the delicately beautiful voices of The Postal Service’s admittedly limited output. The barely understandable vocals on most of the songs remind me most of Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, but Ortiz-Ferrari’s mumbliness shares qualities in common with the aforementioned erstwhile Scientologist and his heavenly harmonies would make Alexis Taylor and Ben Gibbard proud.

The album also makes for a nice companion to slept-on releases from Canadian IDM crooner Milosh (whose new track on the ‘Ghostly Swim’ compilation is near perfection) & Ohio/New York-based band Skeletons (a.k.a. Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys and Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities). And fans of the Plug Research & Ghostly International labels should find Aeration Swells a welcome addition to their collections.