When surrounded by the cold on all sides, it’s important to find appropriate mood music; something to either blast away the cold with promises of Summer just on the horizon or to revel in the abject misery and desolation of the whole season. With Dunes, recorded in the near arctic US Midwest, California-based Gardens and Villa are trying to explore the season. Whether or not they’re successful is a very different story. Dunes operates on two primary settings: new wave/post punk- inflected electro boogies and slower tempo melancholic nuggets of ethereal emotion. Throughout the whole record the influences are apparent.…