Ten years ago, this sounded like the future. The combination of pop songcraft and electronic texture that Jimmy Tamborello conjured on Dntel's Life Is Full of Possibilities seemed to achieve one of the implicit cardinal goals of independent music: to strike a seamless balance between "catchy" and "experimental." It was a coup for those of us who had both Squarepusher and Promise Ring discs in our CD changers, a promise that the exhilarating high-budget sonics of Radiohead's Kid A could be brought down to the more human scale of bedroom indie pop. In a certain, ineffable way it just sounded right for its time, much in the way that Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca and tUnE-yArDs' w h o k i l l have in recent years.
In the decade since Life Is Full of Possibilities was first released on the Plug Research label, we've realigned our perceptions of both "catchy" and "experimental." The sweet, straightforward melodies on Life Is Full of Possibilities now seem almost embarrassingly earnest, the electronic manipulations cold and procedural. While Tamborello's mastery is undeniable, there's a staggering sense of openness to Life Is Full of Possibilities in both its content and its execution. There is no mystery here; you can see the gears turning, both emotionally and sonically. For all its skittery beats and overdriven synthesizers, Life Is Full of Possibilities often feels less like an "intelligent dance music" record than a straight-up 1990s emo record, with the muscle of a traditional rock band proxied by Tamborello's smart, dynamic arrangements.
Though Tamborello's instrumentals are the only constant on an album studded with guest vocalists, Life Is Full of Possibilities feels more like the product of a disciplined, rotating collective than a solo album with one-off collaborators. Each song is particularly well-suited to its respective singer, and each singer fully engages with Tamborello's instrumental tracks. An air of melancholy hangs over most of this album, but Tamborello understands that Mia Doi Todd's flat, confident vocals on "Anywhere Anyone" evoke a very different kind of melancholy from Beachwood Sparks singer Chris Gunst's fragile, unsteady vocals on "Umbrella". Tamborello foregos a more manipulated vocal treatment and lets a tuneful vocal from Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard anchor the swirling, overdriven "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan", setting the stage for the bajillion-selling full-length collaboration the two would release as the Postal Service. (Music theory geek aside: there's a certain magic to Gibbard's voice when he sings a perfect fifth up followed by a minor third down, as he does in nearly all of his best songs.)
Four remixes of "Evan and Chan" are far and away the drabbest bonus material on Sub Pop's deluxe reissue; removed from the original song's arc, the individual sonic elements here just aren't that interesting. An alternate version of "Umbrella" shows what a more half-assed version of this album might have sounded like, with Chris Gunst's voice locked into a repetitive pattern and bolstered by obvious, heavy-handed swells of distortion. "Evan and Chan" B-side "Your Hill" is the strongest non-album cut here, culling its primary melody from a loud monophonic synthesizer while using vocals as abstract, poetic ornamentation. Broadly speaking, the bonus material here veers more toward the conventional IDM of its time, falling short of the original album but also making a case for its unique strengths.
The best thing about this reissue has nothing to do with its bonus material, though; a solid remastering job pushes both treble and the bass beyond the relatively thin, high-mid-leaning sonic footprint of many late-90s and early-00s computer-recorded albums. Digital conversion technology, much like music itself, has changed a lot in the last 10 years-- which seems like a fairly short time between release and reissue, but also a really long time to have passed since this particular album came out. For a record fixated on personal nostalgia, Life Is Full of Possibilities still feels bright-eyed and forward-thinking. That Tamborello's ambition and optimism now seem slightly distant and idealistic probably says more about us now than it does about this album. This may not be the future we chose, but it remains a beautiful future to imagine.
