Big Beautiful Sky

New York abstract dance troupe Blue Man Group provides self-composed, self-performed musical backing for its performances, but so much of the show is visual–from the blue-painted bodies to the oversized props–that it's hard to imagine an album offshoot being more than a fan's curio. That explains why the group filled its 1999 recording debut Audio with songs never performed onstage, and why countless guest musicians and vocalists appear on the follow-up disc The Complex. Founders Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton, and Chris Wink hope to draw attention away from the performing gimmicks and toward their compositional skills, and they make a fair case on The Complex, which relies heavily on unusual percussive instruments and tribal cadences to give arty dance music an exotic, bumpy skin. The likes of Dave Matthews, Josh Haden, and Gavin Rossdale lay down vocal tracks on about half of the album, and their raspy, monotone voices fit easily into Blue Man Group's post-Peter Gabriel world-pop. But the instrumentals command the most attention, with the band's exploratory banging, drumming, and scraping at the center of the mix. Very little of The Complex comes off as more than sophisticated videogame music, mainly because Blue Man Group is good at filling big spaces, but not at unearthing the small, precious pockets of stillness. Nevertheless, offbeat music-theory majors should eat it up. If nothing else, The Complex might introduce more people to the young techno-pop trio Venus Hum, which joins Blue Man Group on its charging cover of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love." Vocalist Annette Strean and computer programmers Kip Kubin and Tony Miracle began making throwback electronic music in Nashville four years ago, prior to the current electroclash wave, and though Venus Hum has been lumped in with that movement, the 12 songs on Big Beautiful Sky reside closer to the work of moody Europeans like Björk and Hooverphonic. Venus Hum's connection to the roots of techno-pop amounts to a shared belief that synthesizers can create music every bit as warm and exciting as that made by traditional instruments. In that spirit, Kubin and Miracle try out a variety of approaches, from ecstatic electronic frenzy on "Montana" to a love-child singalong on "Soul Sloshing," and from surging, blip-based disco-funk on "Lumberjacks" to choppy avant-pop on "Springtime #2." Big Beautiful Sky also nods to pretty pop on ballads like the burbling "Wordless May" and the sweeping "The Bells," with Strean's slippery, sugarcoated voice tying the tracks together, adding theatricality and vulnerability. Throughout the album, Venus Hum shows off impressive range and skill with melody, especially considering how easy it is for musicians with an instrumental shtick to coast on sound alone.