Roden presents us with the soundtrack to a mechanized world that is falling apart. I imagine we’re listening to robots whose basic functionality is beginning to crumble. Highly mechanical samples layered next to each other, on top of each other. One of the robots plays piano. In the background, you can often hear vinyl whirring, hissing. This album is quiet and restrained, but it’s far too unsettled and fragmentary to be peaceful listening.

Recommended: 1, 5, 9, 10

1) “Words in the Shape of a Tree” (7:58): Quiet sound samples laid on top of each other. The piano section beginning around 3:00 is very strong. Brilliant stirring climax around 5:30; then long descent.
2) “Breadly Medly (Dry Hill)” (0:32): Highly fragmented transition track: lots of clicking.
3) “Transparency (Red)” (5:00): The bottom layer: pounding, menacing piano. Whirring at the end, like a fan, as the track winds down.
4) “If the Linotronic Could Sing” (0:41): A small, unnatural creature singing, or trying to sing, anyway. Eerie.
5) “Feeling, Smelling, Tasting” (10:12): Several samples of piano layered on top of each other. Crackling vinyl noise thick in the background. Around 6:30 the piano goes away and we transition into something much more fragmented.
6) “Incidental Mountain (Simply)” (1:42): Checking out at the scariest supermarket in the world.
7) “On Recycled Paper” (0:30): The song tries to start a few times, then gives up.
8) “Nine Stones” (0:21): More fragmentation.
9) “When Bread is Like Bells” (1:27): Almost catchy piano at the top, screechy spinning disks up top. Wish it were longer.
10) “Straightforwardness” (7:44): Early on: like a giant waking up from a nap in a dungeon. Piano enters at around 2:30. Lots of layers on this track, which, ironically, is one of the least straightforward in the set.
11) “Wing/Ogre/Stone” (0:38): Echoing fragments.

--Mr. Tumnus