SAN FRANCISCO — “Sena Song,” the opening track on Scrabbel’s latest release, dives into a twirling, feel-good love-in: jangly guitars and male-female vocals that sound like a dusty old phonograph found in the attic next to your mom’s macramé collection. It’s an inviting atmosphere that draws listeners into Dan Lee’s musical playground — a place where friends gather in smoky apartments to play a violin or trumpet, or cello, or whatever moves them.

1909 is the new album from Scrabbel, once a duo consisting of Lee and high school friend Becky Baron, and now Lee’s solo project for which he writes, produces and records nearly all of the songs, with the help of a bevy of local musicians and friends.

Scrabbel formed in 1999 in San Francisco, and Lee describes his and Baron’s music not in terms of genre, but as a product of “innocent joy” and “boy/girl fun” (they named the band after the beloved game they played incessantly in high school). Their self-titled debut, released in 2001, made a mark in twee pop for constructing pop songs using an imaginative array of instruments, such as the ukelele, claves, shaker and, on one song, the infamous Speak-N-Spell (an ’80s, high-tech gadget that tested spelling skills with the aid of a computerized voice).

That album was also a product of Lee’s newfound unemployment. At the height of the dot-com boom in San Francisco, Lee had the ultimate cush job doing data entry and DJing on a Japanese music channel for the Internet radio Web site Spinner.com. Flanked with hip 20-somethings, pingpong tables and pinball machines, Lee floated along happily until the extensive data entry work gave him repetitive stress injury (RSI). Lee underwent physical therapy and cut back on his hours, and in response, his employer (which was purchased by America Online) canned him. It was his first “real job” since graduating from the University of California, San Diego with a degree in biology, and it was also his last. “It was a scary moment for me,” he reflects.

Displaced but not discouraged, Lee focused on playing music with Scrabbel, went on tour and worked odd jobs to support himself.

From the beginning, things went well for the band. Scrabbel found support from the media (a Japanese publication released their first song on one of their compilations), as well as the Asian American community (their first gig was for the first “Directions In Sound” component of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival). Their debut was also released by Los Angeles-based indie label Kittridge Records.

Then, Lee had the rug pulled out from under him. Seemingly out of nowhere, Baron unofficially quit the band by not showing up to a gig one night in the summer of 2002.

Though the two remain friends, Lee has carried on without her. Writing and arranging songs with Baron gone, Lee has chosen to steer clear of the quirky instruments in exchange for strings, trumpet, violin, clarinet and organ. The result, as heard on 1909, is a sweeping statement of melody and an ode to the ending of a musical friendship. The Beatles influence is still in the music (as well as a cover of the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset”), but the real gems are the ones that build off simple melodic lines, layered with the dramatic statement of a cello or the electronic texture of a drum loop, or both.