Spill all over you

• The Field, “A Paw in the Face” (buy From Here We Go Sublime here)

I was late getting onto this album by The Field, aka Axel Willner, a man from Sweden. Had I been less late, the record would have been a strong contender for my top-of-the-year list a few weeks back.

Like a lot of electronica, this stuff hypnotizes via pattern repetition. But in this track especially, the patterns vary subtly from bar to bar, and the variations are almost predictable but just off-schedule enough to be tantalizing. Here and throughout the record, rapid successions of discrete notes, from registers higher and lower, blend into a gestalt that’s contemplative, even soothing. More than others of its ilk (said the dilettante), “A Paw in the Face” evokes Reich & Riley and still holds up itself.

• His Name Is Alive, “Write My Name in the Groove” (buy Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth here)

From a 2001 album that I just got into, in which the jazz- and gospel-loving art rockers tackle the contemporary R&B ballad. (Not just with this song – pretty much over the whole album, though there are also a couple of more oldtimey Billie Holiday homages.) I love this song, mostly because that lovely melody in the title lyric calls to mind TLC, which is a shortcut to my heart. The singer sells it well, and that’s some real nice drum work, too.

The album has a few other great things – including a torchy ballad called “Are We Still Married” – but you could argue that overall, it’s a little too dry & reverent for its own good.