Small Pieces Loosely Joined

Layer upon layer of sounds mixed in with some beats and at times piano makes Small Pieces... an album difficult to understand, but at the same time makes you think. Cool sounds, weird sounds, eclectic sounds, modem connecting sounds ...you name it and there's a good chance it's made up part of Vert's latest release. Most tracks would be considered experimental on my part as they dabble with sounds in a lo-fi atmosphere but appear to present a journey of sorts with the more "noisy" elements comprising the beginning tracks progressing to a more relaxed, piano-based finale.
the good: eventhough I'm not a huge fan of this sound, the CD is well done the bad: if you're not into electronic music at all, this might be an album to avoid; it's not straight-forward the ugly: tracks are hard to read on the back
potty-mouth tracks: none; all instrumental

(note: all numbers are out of 10, i.e. 5/10)1.Pattern Matching: short track; starts out with noisy background and ends with piano (7) 2.I Always Lie: some nice reverse loops and pretty good tribal beats; distorted modem sounds (8) 3.Everything From Shells: marimbas; glass breaking; song's distinctly cut in half; check it out (8) 4.The Tenthousand things: another short one; pipe organ; like the use of the doorbell as a melody-maker (8) 5.2 5 1: really, really short; not too interesting; has accordion playing (6) 6.Octatone Rag: predominantly piano track; first half is rag-time style and the latter half is jazz- style; cool track---my fave of the album (9) 7.Always Both: melancholy piano with distortion that almost sounds like rain (7) 8.Sprung: by the sea?; very soothing (8) 9.Against the Diagram Makers: another sad track; sounds like something out of film noir with some distorts in the background; then moves on to piano (8) 10.Turn Right & Straight on til Morning: piano driven track; reminds me of a level in the video game Metroid Prime (8)

review courtesy of rE\dOx