Cepia (aka Huntley Miller) grew up playing the bass, studying with jazz bassist Anthony Cox and playing in a few Twin Cities rock bands. most notably before striking out on his own, collaborating in the 5 piece experimental drum&bass band Suki Takahashi. On his new self-titled CD Cepia, he puts a lot of care into melody and chord progressions, while still keeping the textural and rhythmic elements in sharp focus.

“Untitled III” opens the album with a simple, straight quarter note melody set in contrast with skittery beats. It’s hard not to link his work on Cepia to the wistful side of Boards Of Canada, but where BOC is woozy, Cepia tracks maintain sharp focus.On first listen, Cepia’s light touch with effects give these songs a hint of the curiously dry sound familiar to anyone old enough to remember playing MIDI files on a cheap Soundblaster card. But the effects aren’t absent, they’re just subtle, or used to underline a particular sound, like the tremelo guitar in “Ithaca.”

Restraint is rare in popular electronic music, but it’s Cepia’s central aesthetic strategy. His synth sounds are close to raw sawtooth and square waves, his drums lack the booming lows and sizzling highs that dominate the palette in most electronica. There’s never so much going on that you can’t hear each instrument as an individual voice. While there’s no shortage of clattering IDM rhythms, they never feel busy or hectic. When the beats stop, as they do on “Public Address” and the beatless album closer “Cord” the remaining sustained tones are subtly textured by chaotic volume fluctuations, and swelling reverberations give you the impression of going from a small space into a much larger one.

Cepia is deceptively accessible at first, but there’s a lot of subtle, deliberate invention that invites repeated listening. While Mr. Miller is obviously enamored of the mid-90s IDM sound, he has defined his own personal sonic landscape, defined as much by what he leaves out and takes away. He doesn’t do everything the technology available to him allows, which gives Cepia a feeling of quiet poise that doesn’t go away when you crank up the volume.

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