Chris MAMA Bauer

People talk of getting in touch with their inner child. Bauer's music is a direct route to contacting that 13-year-old boy inside who loves monster movies and getting creeped out. Culled from 18 albums created from '94 to '09, A Universe of Horrors exhibits a consistent aesthetic. Clunky drum samples, low-tech synths and amped-up guitars sculpt tracks that embody MAMA's obsession with jagged, jerky rhythms, bizarre keyboard clusters and viscerally screaming melody lines, as the eerie "Seed of Fire" exemplifies. "Sequences for Sun Ra" skitters out of kilter, with a stuttering swarm of keyboards of differing timbres and reverb depths creating a dizzying ballet, like so many alien jellyfish in a black light aquarium. And filmmakers out there take note: Universe is a compendium of tracks that would add texture and "oomph" to any movie, be it a meditation on the undead or a Saw sequel. MAMA's music brings its A-game to the B-movie in your mind.