Vert

Adam Vert, one of the tour-mates for Mouse on Mars, has produced a wonky, somewhat Autechre-ian album of noise and melody. The tracks on the first two-thirds of the album are energetic and frolicking, similar to the wonky noodling of Mouse on Mars, yet a bit edgier. The best tracks are the last few, including "Last Night From The Bus I Saw" and "Scope/Lifetime," which are so different and elaborate from the rest of the album that it could have been produced by a different artist. "Last Night..." goes through several changes, opening melancholic and dissonant, then shredded apart by a high-pitched digital shriek, like someone's misery approaching a crescendo. "Scope/Lifetime" is subtler and deserves to be called a compositional movement. The best analogy I can offer up is that it sounds like a free-jazz piece made up of collage fragments of sound, but more intricate. The latter more brooding parts ought to be pursued by Vert, because it seems the least developed realm in electronic music, especially in the masterful way he executes them.