**1/2 Sugar Plant

AFTER AFTER HOURS

(World Domination)

Sugar Plant are Chinatsu Ogawa (bass/vocals) and Shin'ichi Shoyama (guitar), two dream-pop converts from Tokyo who sound as if they'd been weaned on a diet formed exclusively of the Velvets' "I'll Be Your Mirror," Mazzy Star, and maybe a couple of Cocteau Twins discs. As the title of their second full-length suggests -- their first, Hiding Places, came out in 1995 on Boston's Pop Narcotic label -- Ogawa and Shoyama aim to fill the hour or two between the end of the party and sunrise with anodyne pop, sort of an indie-rock equivalent of a techno-head's ambient chill-out tunes. The result is a kind of space-age bachelor pad music cut loose from its retro-kitsch moorings, or a rough translation of Mazzy Star that omits David Roback's many allusions to the psychedelic '60s. Either way, After After Hours works wonderfully as an aural anesthetic, with Shoyama's undulating strum-and-drone guitars lapping up against spare, slow-motion beats, humming bass notes, and a shifting backdrop of subtle electronic textures while Ogawa's sugary voice melts into syrupy melodies. As she puts it in "#4," "I know everyone won't be killed suddenly by thunder but I like it so much."

-- Matt Ashare