Eerie tunes.

The liner notes provide the first indication that Dayclear & First Dark, the second full-length release from Daniel Givens, is operating outside the mainstream; among those cited "In memory of ..." are jazz futurist Sun Ra, writer James Baldwin, and painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Like those innovators, Givens creates art that--while defiantly the product of a black, gay, urban artist--bears almost zero relation to the music (house, R&B, hip-hop) one might anticipate based solely on his personal stats.

Broken down to their basic components, these 14 tracks are deceptively simple: slow-moving, skittish electronic rhythm beds, tar-pit bubble bass lines, and gravelly vocals. Yet the timbres and words Givens hangs upon these frameworks seem even more jarring in such stark settings. With its scratchy strings, "Progression" lopes along like a prehistoric cousin of Bauhaus's goth classic "Bela Lugosi's Dead"; wooden flute and strummed guitar illuminate "Invisible Ink" like beams of sunlight breaking through dense clouds. When Givens flirts with pop, quasifamiliar elements only make the outcomes more unsettling; like Prince with blue balls, "Transport" promises "I'll make you my only star," yet it's all tension and no release.

Givens's credentials in other disciplines enhance the music: His photography translates into keen use of space, especially via stereo panning; his poetry background has taught him that repetition can be more ear-catching than tricky rhymes or shouting. But don't dismiss Dayclear as the work of a dilettante. This is a challenging and practically unclassifiable masterpiece; in a pinch, call it Ill-at-EZ-Listening.