Songs for the Gentle is really, really nice but not in quite the way the prescriptive title and willfully bucolic sleeve (with its fields, trees, and grazing horses) might imply. A collaboration between a member of Hefner (Lee Jones), a DJ (Carsten Klemann), and a former editor at Groove magazine (Nick Hoppner), the Anglo-Germanic, Berlin-based collective creates music somewhere between the arid atmospherica of Lawrence and the twitchy ‘n’ bouncy playfulness of Pantytec. It’s the trio’s skills in juxtaposing such contradictory poles so effectively (less finding a middle ground than giving the former a club-friendly booster shot) that makes their debut long-player-like the “Klatta,” “Serpentine,” and “Swiss on Rye” singles that preceded it-so utterly lovable. Ausgezeichnet!