If there was a competition for most accurate album title of the year, this one would win by a mile.

Pretentious was constructed around its opening track, the 14-minute instrumental "Music For Multiple Dimensions" (subtitled — I kid not — "[initiationcommunicationtraveltechnologypanicrelease]") (RealAudio excerpt), which is played several times daily in the Soundscapes 3D auditorium of the National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield, England.

The album "has been recorded in binaural format," we are told in the sleeve notes. "The listener should wear headphones to hear the unique three-dimensional surround sound spatiality of the mixes."

All of which makes it notable that Pretentious is the work of two committed pop musicians — hence the self-mocking nature of the title.

Vince Clarke (early Depeche Mode, the short-lived Assembly and all of Erasure) and Martyn Ware (early Human League, the sporadic British Electric Foundation, and all of Heaven 17) have been involved in some of the most exciting electronic dance music of the last 20 years, and if they feel the need now to respond to their classical/experimental/ambient instincts, then sound sculpting for urban museums seems the perfect environment for it.

The concept of sound spatiality within headphones will be familiar to anybody who makes music on their computers late at night, but be warned: The "revolutionary" 3D aspect involves nothing more cosmic than various sounds appearing to switch stereo channels frequently (albeit charmingly). Hearing it on regular speakers reveals Pretentious to be, essentially, another ambitious instrumental electronic album in a marketplace awash with them.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. This album has many of the same enticing ingredients as William Orbit's recent Pieces in a Modern Style: beautiful grand piano and stringed synthesizer parts, simplistic cyclical motifs and overall suggestion of some cinematic drama about lost childhoods. This is best typified by the finale, "The Light Far Away" (RealAudio excerpt), which plays off the kind of lovely melodies Vince Clarke can write in his sleep.

On the other hand, "Wilderness/Turbulence" (RealAudio excerpt) takes music back to the headphone-insistent, quadrophonic-hyped days of early 1970s Pink Floyd. Ultimately, then, Pretentious is a perfectly passable listening experience for those who have the time — and the headphones — for it.