Some rather memorable moments in the catalogue of Jimmy Tamborello, aka Dntel, feature collaborations with neatly paired guest vocalists such as Ben Gibbard, Jenny Lewis, Baths and Mia Doi Todd, to name a few. Tamborello has always paid a good deal of attention to picking these singers carefully, with his backing a perfect complement— the producer humbly stepping out of the spotlight, allowing the guest to shine. Ironically, then, Human Voice, the producer’s latest album on the consistently evolving Leaving Records (co-signed by Los Angeles powerhouse Stones Throw Records), is atypically bereft of any featured guests. Tracks are instead festooned with largely computerized and disembodied voices, lost somewhere in an ether of circuitry and possessing that plaintive emotion which sounds unmistakably like Dntel. An interesting thing happens— even without lyrics and the personality of a vocalist attached to them, the 8 tracks here still manage to convey the same depths of emotion, despair, longing, hope, and optimism. Human Voice demonstrates that the real complexity and driving emotion has always been emanating straight out of the machines, effectively communicating as competently as human language. Music is a language all its own, able to convey emotional complexity with the same deftness as words— and without the immense frustration of language barriers.