Whenever I get a new package of CDs from Splendid HQ, the first thing I do is rifle through them looking for cool packaging. It's like getting a piece of wacky mail art from a friend: what crazy new combination of paper, ink and glue will they come up with this time? Brasilia is the clear winner among the current batch of CDs sitting on my living room floor. First there's a pretty frosted white plastic sheath, sewn together on three sides. Inside of that is a deep purple semi-opaque envelope with "brasilia" stamped on it in silver ink. Inside of that is a cool black/white/red Mondrian-inspired booklet with some crazy texts and info about the band. Finally, inside of the booklet is the CD itself. And here's the really strange part -- the CD is a CD-R with a crappy laser printed label that doesn't fit on the disc very well. It seems a shame to betray such beautiful packaging with a shoddily-assembled product, but in the end the rest of the package is so cool that it doesn't really matter. Besides, the disc is in the CD player most of the time, so you don't have to look at it if you don't want to!

Of course, I was fairly certain that the CD would suck, given the normal "CDs suck according to the inverse square of the coolness of their packaging" rule. Happily, Brasilia doesn't suck at all. In fact, the music on this disc goes quite well with its packaging -- it's lush, contemplative, semi opaque, lovely, dreamy stuff. It may be more suited to a cold winter evening than a bright spring day, but I'm not about to complain.

This is about as organic-sounding a record as you could ask for. There is some electronic bleeping and blipping here and there, mostly from the rhythm section, but even the tweaked out drum machine passages sound more like signals from a twitchy nervous system than an angry cyborg. The name Brasilia might conjure images of a meticulously designed city of steel and glass, but the music here is pure lush rain forest. Thick, humming guitars, lazy drums and full, round organ tones back a quietly pretty female voice singing unintelligible lyrics about dreamy events in far-off places. Sure, you may have heard it all before -- but is that so bad when "it" is such a lovely thing? If this is what Brasilia is really like, I want to go.