In a year when electronic dance artists such as Jamie Lidell and Roisin Murphy have made a good fist at innovative pop, along comes Croatian-born Kelley Polar to steal their thunder. This is his first attempt at the genre: for his day job, he plays viola in a string quartet that visits areas of conflict such as the Middle East. He is best known for arranging strings for New York disco duo Metro Area, whose Morgan Geist assists him here on production duties.

After being dismissed from the illustrious Juilliard music school for introducing shuddering basslines to their recital room, Polar moved from Manhattan to New Hampshire to write Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens, and the album reflects both pastoral moods and synthetic city energy. The Rooms in My House piles strings next to a nefarious rave rumble, and Matter Into Energy conjures the atmosphere of a 17th-century discotheque, if such a thing can be imagined. As unique as the cascading lights of a mirrorball.

* Download: Here in the Night; Matter Into Energy