(Review by Ready For The Houston)

It’s interesting to hear a compilation of outtakes from a band that I have no prior exposure to. Is this weird assortment of tracks representative of their larger body of work? Is it 100% different and that’s why they’re outtakes? Regardless of the answer, this motley collection of electro/rock musings is stimulating, varied and immersive.

Weirdo opener “Loading” manages to turn repetitive electronic chirps into a heady vortex. The circle is finally broken at the end with a rampant electronics solo that’s hard to imagine any human playing. It sounds like a robot attempting to shred based on observations from YouTube metal tutorials.

It’s an odd way to begin the album and doesn’t really start listeners off on the proper footing, but I guess the track listing really is the equivalent of Tupperware full of leftovers. They’re not supposed to feel cohesive.

The guitar on “Color Purse Color Breach” takes many different forms, but for much of the song paints a beautiful picture that is part space voyage, part sunrise and part daydreaming. I say daydreaming because the playing is whimsical and bright, but wanders off the path a few times onto the edges of chaos.

The times the guitar gets just a bit dissonant (like at the beginning), it’s hard not to think of the plodding, childlike melodies of the Red Krayola’s Mayo Thomspon-centric Drag City releases from the ’90s and early 2000s. Some of us like that though.

“Spectacular Rays of Sunshine” takes a granular mix of different noises that work together mechanically like the parts of a steam locomotive to create a single, driving beat. At first it sounds harsh, but the clashing of the constituent noises is eventually smoothed as listeners get used to their strange harmony. “Memory is a Capsule” relies on a similar looping of concepts to create the illusion of movement and form where there is little.

Five Word Review: Orphaned songs for thinking people