SEEFEEL, Quique (Caroline) Whatever happened to 'dreampop'? Well, the smartest of those bands have turned onto techno, and are mixing their their lustrous guitarstuff with sampled pulses and sequenced hypno-rhythms. My Bloody Valentine showed the way with 1991's Loveless, on which they looped their basslines and sampled their own feedback. The best of the new techno- affiliated dreampopsters, Seefeel, have struck a sublime groove midway between MBV's sensual tumult and Aphex Twin's ambient serenity. Listening to Seefeel's billowing tapestry of textures, it's hard to distinguish between the looped samples, treated guitars, and breathy, non-verbal murmurs (vocalist Su Page is just another 'instrument'). Under this caressing canopy of sound, there's a dub-influenced rhythm matrix of foetal- hearbeat bass and percolating percussion. But at their most radical, Seefeel abandon songs and beats altogether, leaving a dyslexic shimmer of radiance that's like a musical equivalent to Op Art. With "Imperial" and the purely ambient "Signals", you try to squint your ear in order to bring the music into focus, then give up, and just bask in the gorgeous, amorphous glow. Seefeel make a sound like the pleasant ache of a post- orgasmic brain, like the dizzy drone-swarm of butterflies in the stomach. Quique should be subtitled: "Songs For Swooning Lovers". SIMON REYNOLDS