As utterly winsome and borderline twee as the album title, the 12 songs on Hexes & Ohs’ debut album are electronic miniatures that put melody before atmosphere, making Goodbye Friend Welcome Lover a bit more substantial than many similar bits of indie electronica. Bassist Heidi Donnelly and multi-instrumentalist Edmund Lam, both a duo and a couple, spent nearly a decade in a variety of Montreal indie acts prior to this release, and their roots in the ’90s indie underground are made clear in simple but effective pop songs like “Scabby Knees” and the dreamy, harmony-heavy “Snow and Jazz Music.” The overall sound of the album suggests that the songs weren’t sculpted out of layers of electronic textures, as many similar indie electronic albums are, but were written and recorded by Donnelly and Lam on bass and guitar, and then overlaid with washes of vintage keyboards, electronic drums, and other synthetic textures, as if Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier from Stereolab elected to do a remix album for the Softies. That blend of twee pop delicacy (Lam and Donnelly both have the style’s archetypal breathy, slightly pitch-poor vocals) and charmingly minimalist D.I.Y. electronica makes Goodbye Friend Welcome Lover perfect for those who love indie cult faves like Trembling Blue Stars and Northern Picture Library, but the overall sense of coupley preciousness might turn others off. – Stewart Mason