Sometimes it’s easier to just discard your baggage and get on with it. It’s true in life and just as true in music. Such is the case with the formation of the band Throws. Comprised of Sam Genders and Mike Lindsay, the founders of the British band Tunng, Throws is a reunion of the two a decade after Genders left the band. The result of the reunion, the self-titled Throws (Thrill Jockey Records), comes three years after Tunng’s last album, Turbines.

For those not familiar with Tunng, the band was often placed in the freak-folk camp. But though they started out freaky, they eventually embraced a pop-leaning sound. Throughout their discography, there was a constant thread of using electronics and beat-driven augmentation, albeit in the company of unusual instrumentation and arrangements. With that in mind, Throws plays very much like a continuation of Tunng post-Genders. But where Tunng developed into a collective, Throws is very much the work of the duo with some cameo help from quartet Amiina, the frequent Sigur Ros collaborators who provided piano and strings. (The album was recorded in Reykjavik, so they tapped into a network of Icelandic musicians.)

Throws ping-pongs betweens a variety of styles and moods, from sweeping pastoral folk to mutant Afro-pop, with whispers of Brit-pop and other elements often in the same song. With all this jumping around, the album plays like a mixtape, but yet the whole thing doesn’t feel confused or muddled. Whatever may be going on musically, every song is anchored by the combination of Genders’ falsetto and Lindsay’s deep, gruff vocals, which at times is reminiscent of latter-day Peter Gabriel and other times sounds like an otherworldly doo-wop duo. It’s an approach the two used while in Tunng so it only makes sense that they’d revisit it as Throws; it’s strange how easily adaptable the technique is to a variety of contexts. Indeed, Throws excel at making this crazy quilt of elements come together effortlessly. It could have been a fussy affair, but instead everything works in perfect balance. Throws is a cleverly put together and delightful excursion.