Hotel Attraction: Gaudi's project for New York

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * *)

The excuse for this gorgeously ambient disc - if any were needed - is that the Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi, so briefly he left only some tiny sketches, planned a construction for New York about 90 years ago.

If this airy and leisurely music is inspired by that thought, we might guess Gaudi's building was to have been made of clouds. This is beautifully packaged, post-Eno instrumental trip-hop ambience by people, other than DJ Krush, whom you've probably never heard of.

But Rithma's wobbly, shimmering guitar and aural sheen of The Return alone might be worth the price of admission. Second disc is a computer-playable video about this futuristic project, the rounded shapes of which, much like this soft-edge music, might fill a vacant space in the hard angles of Lower Manhattan rather elegantly. And they do have one.

Label: K. Industria/Rhythm Method