Telefon Tel Aviv deserves credit for riding out a decade of association with a hazily defined genre of good music: Intelligent Dance Music. The awful title* is made worse by bespectacled science students/music geeks/aderall addicts who use the abbreviation IDM go on for days about Planet Mu.

What kept Telefon Tel Aviv from getting sucked into the trendy, pretentious black hole of IDM wonkery was an uncommon sense of methodical purpose and deep feeling. They took their time making albums. Each one has a cohesive character and mood. Like many of their contemporaries, they used electronic devices and elements cribbed from a thorough knowledge and passion for dance music, hip-hop, ambient, and countless derivations thereof. Their use of modern glitchcraft in their 2004 masterpiece Map of What is Effortless wholeheartedly embraced a naked emotionalism with flourishes of swooning symphonics, strutting electro cruises and unabashed vocals on a sincere R&B tip. Telefon Tel Aviv might be equally enthralling to devotees of Boards of Canada and Hall & Oates.

Each of Telefon Tel Aviv’s albums has its own distinctiveness, building upon its predecessor. Map of What is Effortless explored the light, experimental ambience of 2001’s Farenheit Fair Enough, and extended those devices to new operatic emotion. The new album Immolate Yourself builds on the more immersive, transcendent moments of Map of What is Effortless, creating a layered, sublime and sad experience. It marries textured ambience with wrenching, resigned sentiment.

Immolate Yourself’s most epic tracks illustrate the overall acute pensivity of the album. The closing title track builds on a martial beat. Alone, it might sound a morbid muck, but it is balanced by layers of airy synth and their trademark digitized vocal chorus. The music does not commit to sadness or transcendence, but it is unafraid of each extreme. Opener “The Birds”, running close to seven minutes, starts with the slowly blossoming synth wash and colorful melody of many electronic full-lengths, and fizzles out to the pleasant textural noise that post-rock has made its mark. The middle passage constantly engages with an insistent, driving beat heavy with tight snares and percolating effects. Once again, a juxtaposition of moods and effects creates greater emotional complexity while avoiding cliche.

Between the poles, Telefon Tel Aviv also let themselves have some fun. Vacuum-sealed beatcraft is to be expected. They avoid the overly studied electronic approach. Every song here is a journey, with the various elements serving a purpose at each point. “Helen of Troy” employs a propulsive beat above dramatic vocals and faint, reverbed choral synth.  It only gathers steam with bold, manicured melodies.  “Stay Away From Being Maybe” kicks hard with a cracking beat that begs for emphatic uprocking. Telefon Tel Aviv never allow you to forget that there is just as much funk, soul and hip-hop in their musical DNA as there is melancholy mood music.

But as much fun as there is, the overall effect is wrenching. Most tracks effect an implacable but notably uncomfortable and yearning note. Pained vocals often float in and out. The recent death of member Charles Cooper reflects on an ominous track like “Your Every Idol”, which now seems downright creepy.  Morbid speculation, however, pales in the shadow of the brilliance on display here, and the stirring elegance of Immolate Yourself stands as tribute to the legacy of Telefon Tel Aviv.

*The problem with the title, which most of its artists didn’t care for anyway, is that it was such a blatant and humorless misnomer in several ways. Does the “intelligent” part indicate that dance music is dim? I know many people generally think so, and there is no shortage of mindless dance music in pop. But most good dance music, even the type that celebrates zombie hedonism, is quite intelligent. Though it may not take pains to show off about it. Secondly, the IDM title stuck to many electronic artists who were not really making “dance” music. I love Autechre to death but have rarely had the urge to bust a move to their beat puzzles. Calling a checklist of abstract electronic artists “intelligent dance musicians” was begging for a backlash.