***1/2 P.M. Dawn

DEAREST CHRISTIAN, I'M SO VERY SORRY FOR BRINGING YOU HERE. LOVE, DAD

(Gee Street)

P.M. Dawn are hip-hop by cultural association -- they're black, they're proud, J.C./The Eternal used to program all his beats, and rapper/singer Prince Be was once pushed off stage by K.R.S. One. But their old-school training was always part of a well-rounded liberal-arts curriculum that included everything from the Beatles to the Beats and continues to serve this cunningly dynamic Jersey City duo remarkably well. Less interested in sampling Lennon and McCartney than in strolling down an Abbey Road of their own creation -- a longer and windier road that passes by Al Green's church and Smokey Robinson's Motown -- they've progressively eschewed the formal trappings of hip-hop, like two soulful Siddharthas on the path to pop enlightenment. What's left -- trad crafted songs made from acoustic and electric guitars, piano, bass, drums, vocal harmonies, and the occasional synth -- brings to mind vintage Prince, less sex-obsessed but just as sexy. It's where De La Soul might have journeyed if any of them could sing like the Purple One, or what Beck's Mutations could sound like if soul music were more than just another pseudo-ironic costume in his second-hand closet.

-- Matt Ashare