Sweet Dreams (are made of MP3s)

“We’re the black Eurythmics,” says Brook D’Leau one afternoon before a recording session in New York.

The 24-year-old producer is probably too young to remember Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart in their heyday. But their juxtaposition of synthesized electronics and pillowy soul serves as his inspiration, along with Prince, Erykah Badu and Jay Dee. Unlike those artists, however, J*Davey isn’t jarring or histrionic. Its music strikes an easy melodic middle ground, yielding songs that are as palatable as radio R&B, without sacrificing innovation for slickness. The sound is warm and creamy, like a summation of several genres blending at once.

On www.jdaveybaby.com, J*Davey (D’Leau and singer Briana “Jack Davey” Cartwright) streams numbers like “Division of Joy” and “No More.” You can watch a video for “Mr. Mister,” too. “I’m not your mama, not your daddy, sister, brother/But maybe you give me a call if there’s no other for ya,” sings Jack Davey, who’s dressed in black lingerie and flashes a strikingly blond mohawk. She straddles and caresses a crash-test dummy while D’Leau’s beats purr and whir like an electric crush. “You’ve got your ass on the grass and in the gutter/Why have another when you got me burning rubber just to be with you.”

J*Davey doesn’t have a proper album out, just a CD-R of demo songs it sells at shows. But it’s got the Internet going nuts. Fans briskly trade MP3s of cuts from the CD-R, live tracks and even random tunes taped from radio broadcasts. The duo collaborates with other artists like Sa-Ra Creative Partners, the Roots (who is featuring J*Davey on its upcoming album, Game Theory) and Georgia Anne Muldrow. For now, however, the only legitimate J*Davey music you’ll find in record stores is a cover of Frank Zappa’s “Dirty Love,” which the group recorded for a compilation album, Rewind! 5, released this spring.

D’Leau and Jack Davey stress they aren’t overnight sensations. “It’s taken us awhile to even get to this point. We’ve been through a lot in terms of criticism, setbacks,” says D’Leau. The two met while attending high school in Los Angeles. Jack Davey had already circulated through the industry as a onetime member of DEF (Doing Everything Funky), a preteen R&B group modeled after Another Bad Creation. It signed to MCA in the early ’90s, but never released an album.

The duo formed J*Davey in 1999. Jack Davey initially rapped and collaborated with D’Leau on an occasional basis while pursuing career opportunities in New York. It took the group a few years to find its identity on “Mr. Mister,” the song that marked Jack Davey’s transformation from MC to neo-new wave temptress.

Record companies, however, still don’t know how to market innovative black artists like J*Davey who defy easy, recognizable categories like hip-hop or R&B. There is a generation of them, from Muldrow and TV on the Radio to Atlanta acts like Anthony David and Slick & Rose. They enjoy healthy independent record sales and appreciative audiences, but major labels are mostly afraid of them.

“In L.A., there’s the underground, then there’s the new soul environment, then there’s also the indie-rock scene. We play a part in all of those,” says D’Leau. “We’re not just rock, we’re not just soul, and we’re not just new wave.” Record labels often approach J*Davey with cheap, lowball deals. D’Leau hopes that after J*Davey issues its debut album, Beauty in Distortion, in October, those same labels will offer more lucrative contracts.

“We’ve been taking the slow route, trying to build a genuine fan base and a genuine buzz,” says Jack Davey. “We don’t mind struggling, being broke for a little while longer, and putting our own [album] out independently. When it does come time for the labels to come to their senses and they’re like, ‘Yeah, now we want to fuck with J*Davey,’ it’s going to be on our own terms.”