On his 2002 Mastered by the Guy at the Exchange, Max Tundra used outdated MIDI instruments (the obviously fake sounds usually heard on '80s pop and dance records), added the quick beat cutting of '90s electronic music (think Aphex Twin or Squarepusher at their most hyper), and sang over them with a fey British music-hall voice. When he used these techniques to create OCD pop, the album was fantastic, but as the songs became more spacious — more about sound than song — I missed his self-consciously cheeseball hooks. So I'm happy to report that Parallax Error excels in them.
It begins with a MIDI organ and Tundra singing like Little Orphan Annie: "I landed in somebody's lap, between the iPod and yellow trucker cap." Awkward references like this abound — "Will Get Fooled Again" even details the various Internet sites where Tundra meets girls. This would be a little too cute, except that he explodes the references to the point of absurdity, dropping "Google" and "eBay" — and rhyming the latter with a girl bidding on Jim O'Rourke's Halfway to a Three-Way.
He still dabbles in more-chin-stroking fare, but he's able to ground his adventures in enough melody to preserve the album's flow — and your bearings.
Related:
Review: Humcrush | Rest at World's End, Scott Weiland | “Happy” in Galoshes, Black Dice | Repo, More 
- Review: Humcrush | Rest at World's End
Replete with bands who weave jazz, modern composition, and electronic music, the Rune Grammofon label captures a thriving scene of Norwegian improvisers and composers.
- Scott Weiland | “Happy” in Galoshes
It might be one of the year’s worst albums, an underwritten, overarranged mess of factory-floor guitar fuzz, go-nowhere vocal melodies, limp electronic beats, and lyrical clunkers
- Black Dice | Repo
Spearheaded by Brooklyn trio Black Dice and their peers, American noise rock is less like the pure noise of Merzbow and more like a renewal of dark, grinding industrial rhythms.
- Same difference
"I grew so weary of playing by myself on the laptop. I felt so controlled by the computer."
- Hot Chip | One Life Stand
Four albums into a career that appeared to begin as an art-school goof, Hot Chip look more likely than any of their peers to ascend one day to the intellectual electro-pop heights of Pet Shop Boys or Scritti Politti.
- ohGr
Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre has made the rounds for the better part of this decade as ohGr, with a more cut-and-paste approach to the electric misanthropy his old band pioneered.
- Trance to the music
As the aesthetes invade dance music, trance has taken more blows than Douglas gave Tyson.
- Demon master
Boston hasn’t always been a major stop for big-league DJs. Record Shopping with Carl Craig (QuickTime)
- House call
Matthew Dear is the golden child of US techno.
- The French are coming
The launch of an extensive North American tour sponsored by MySpace that comes to the Paradise this Saturday.
- Versioning
It’s been three years since Autechre’s Untilted , and it feels longer.
- Less
Topics:
CD Reviews
, Entertainment, Internet, Science and Technology, More
, Entertainment, Internet, Science and Technology, Technology, Music, Electronic Music, Audio and Video Devices, Consumer Electronics, Electronics, Websites, Less
