Subtle Passion From the Warm Inventions

The somnambulant ‘90s psychedelia of Mazzy Star may be only a wispy memory, but the dream-pop sensibilities of singer Hope Sandoval’s old band informed her latest project, the Warm Inventions, which made its L.A. debut on Wednesday at the sold-out El Rey Theatre.

Five years after the last Mazzy album, Sandoval teamed with drummer Colm O’Ciosoig of noise-pop introverts My Bloody Valentine to release the 2001 album “Bavarian Fruit Bread,” a slightly more human-sounding but still tranquilized set with subtle folk and blues touches. The 90-minute El Rey performance drew mostly from that collection, as the duo and four other musicians deftly reproduced the recording’s opiated-to-daydreamy vibe.

You couldn’t really see what the players were actually doing with guitars, harmonica, glockenspiel, keyboards, percussion, etc., because the stage remained darkened save for the cozy glow of red spotlights. This veiled ambience and Sandoval’s whispery singing--not to mention the distortion-festooned encore take on the Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire”--reinforced the sense of keeping listeners at a distance while encouraging them to pay careful attention to her spare, intimate murmurs of remembrance, regret and need.

The musicians bent intently over their instruments, caressing and finessing the sustained sonic waves as they rode the languorous melancholy of “Lose Me on the Way,” the peaceful, evocative “Butterfly Mornings” and a Gram Parsons-esque take on the Jesus and Mary Chain tune “Drop.” Still, there was an ember of passion guiding the nuances, and emotional emphasis came in the crescendo of dueling distorted guitars, the stark thump of maracas on a drum head and the subtle twang in Sandoval’s voice.