Tosca’s Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber return with their fifth studio album, No Hassle. The set, which follows 2005’s J.A.C. and the 2006-released remix collection, Souvenirs, furthers the acclaimed duo’s explorations into expansive, ambient compositions blending analogue and digital sounds with live instrumentation. Once again, Dorfmeister and Huber ingeniously craft another luxuriant and conceptual cinematic landscape, drawing on their signature blend of spacious dub and funk, Krautrock, avant-jazz, obscured samples, sophisticated melodies, lush orchestration and iridescent, laidback grooves. As always, the songs came naturally—born out of improvisational experiments that were later sharpened, reconstructed and/or stripped down to arrive at the final assemblage of 12 immersive and compelling tracks. The album opens with the simmering “My First,” which interweaves guitar twangs, sci-fi electronic pulses and slightly demented vocal snippets. The set slowly cascades into the enveloping “Elitsa,” with its hazy guitar, ghostly traces of blues and haunting, spoken samples. However, before you can drift away, the duo picks up the pace with the pulsating, rolling funk of “Springer” and the thumping “Oysters In May” (one of the album’s two uptempo moments, alongside “Elektra Bregenz”). Other highlights include “Fondue,” the rippling “Rosa” and the exotic closing title track, which conjures images of rainforests and the vast Serengeti grasslands. Overall, the collection is a mellow sound-and-vision oasis, undulating with largely instrumental, cosmic blues-drenched tapestries that are meditative, fragrant and absorbing. The disc includes a bonus live CD capturing Tosca’s breathtaking performance at the Linzer Dom cathedral in Linz, Austria last September (during the Ars Electronica festival) where they previewed most of this new material. Fans of Air, Future Sound of London and Tom Middleton’s chilled-out opus, Lifetracks, will undoubtedly bask in the album’s soothing hypnotic grip. (Craig Roseberry)