From its opening track onwards, Tidelands’ debut album If… is an ambitious, multi-layered project taking indie-pop to rarified heights. Partners Gabriel Montana Leis and Mie Araki (originally hailing from India and Japan, respectively) match literate, impressionistic lyrics to bittersweet, deceptively simple melodies, then lushly arrange them with input from San Francisco’s Magik*Magik Orchestra. Leis’ melancholy yet resolute lead vocals, murmuring electric guitar and flowing flugelhorn lines give these songs an intimacy even when the string backdrops suggest vast cinematic expanses. A pervasive yearning colors tracks like “Holy Grail,” “Holiday” and “Letter to a Young Soldier I Love,” “Sixes and Sevens,” and “The Ship” offers quick and telling glimpses of a lover’s quarrel over aching accompaniment. Dreamy, ruminating tracks like “Amulet” and “Marigolds” unfold in watercolor tones, while “Eyes of God” inserts a cacophonous free-jazz passage as it ponders the madness of humanity. If… achieves a widescreen sonic grandeur, yet never feels overblown or detached.