Joy Zipper's Vincent Cafiso, left, and Tabitha Tindale.

Just in time for summer's hard goodbye comes "American Whip," Joy Zipper's 12-song surf-soaked medley of symphonic ambience, deliciously sinister lyrics and mellifluous mix of low-fi guitar and muted keyboards.

Crafting a lush musical dreamscape that marries Belle & Sebastian-ish lyrical razorblades with Breeders-like guitar thrums and gentle Beach Boys-style melodies, this New York duo make exquisite beach music that'll leave you squinting and sunburnt.

And considering the pair's sophomore album bowed to rave reviews when it was released in Europe last year, Tabitha Tindale, who comprises one half of the band with her musical/life partner Vincent Cafiso, couldn't be happier.

Pointing to the record's album cover, which gives Atlantic City a retro makeover, Tindale says matter-of-factly, "I'm a gambler."

"Vincent and I realize that's what we're doing," she says over the phone from her home in New York City. "This whole life we've carved out for ourselves is a gamble."

After meeting at a Battle of the Bands contest in Long Island many moons ago, Tindale instantaneously gravitated to Vincent, a prototypical guitarist trying to get a record deal.

"Vincent was always doing his own music, and I was his girlfriend," she recalls. "But when his band broke up, he asked me to sing on a track with him and something just clicked. The first time we put our voices down together, they meshed perfectly.

"It wasn't long after that when we got a record deal."

Released in the U.K. in the spring of 2004, "American Whip" was one of the most talked about albums in Britain last year. Q Magazine called Joy Zipper "masters of an otherworldly perfect sound that seems to make time stand still."

Some convoluted legal wrangling, which prevented the album's release in North America (the record was released in the United States in February) prompted Vincent and Tabitha to spend much of 2004 playing shows in Europe, including some dates with chamber-pop darlings Air.

Penning songs that bubble with ribald humour and existential angst, Tindale says the album charts the pair's "innermost thoughts."

"We've had a lot of deaths in our lives," she says pensively. "Some of the songs are literally about death, but learning to deal with our own mortality is something we came to grips with making this album.

"We like contrasts in things though," she quickly adds. "We might write downbeat lyrics, but when we go into the studio, we'll pair them with an up-sounding melody."

The result is a brooding, sometimes melancholic record, in which the duo toys with downwind pop sensibilities, while happily conducting a whirlwind emotional psych-symphony. They pen gentle odes to love (the hazy "Christmas Song" and its refrain, "I love you more than a thousand Christmases"), and throw plenty of slings ("I'll always find/ A suitable lie in your guise/ A practice lie a suitable lie/ No I don't want you but you want me" on the haunting "In the Never Ending Search for a Suitable Enemy") and arrows ("Baby you should know this time/ That every thought you have is mine" on the spare "Baby You Should Know," and "Why do I keep forgetting your name/ Maybe I never liked you anyway" from the coy "Alzheimers").

In fact, the disc’s wonky cocktail lounge feel might make you think “American Whip” is for trippy late night proselytizing, but Tindale urges listeners not to draw the curtains all the way.

"There's definitely something dark and moody about the album that gives it a later-night type vibe, but I like it right in the morning," she says effervescently. "There's a lot of different feelings on it."

And in between promoting "American Whip" in the U.S. and Canada (they played Toronto's Opera House and Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom this past spring), the duo are readying themselves for the North American release of their third disc, "The Heartlight Set," which is due later this fall. Recorded in the Hamptons and New York City last winter, Tindale keeps her cards close to her chest, saying only that "Heartlight" is "tighter sounding and definitely not as dreamy."