Moldover
Artist: Moldover 
Label: Indie
 
A Facebook friend* hipped me to this electronic music/DJ innovator via a post of this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8UzSVFUIc0

If you've watched the vid before reading the rest of this review, you may already agree that Moldover (his last name, I'll suppose) likely deserves some kind of award for the packaging of his debut CD. I might know a couple of Grammy voters, so I'll see what I can do.

Beyond the innovative, interactive packing, this New Yorker also has a contraption of his own invention called the Octamasher. With it, he's creating machine-based music with human heart and humor. It's often noisy and experimental-whatever that means any longer-but with an ear to soulfulness and emotion.

Throughout ten tracks, Moldover connects the hidden alliances connecting prog rock, toy music boxes, his digestive system, the burbles and gurgles of what sound like alien volcanos, crazed drum & bass and break-beat percussion and plenty else that could have entered his mind during the three years it took to create this opus. 

Of special note are his two vocal tracks. "Say It" imagines Daft Punk or Kraftwerk teaming up against an errant spelling toy. And the mechanized voice holds more appeal than [insert current pop chart act here] using AutoTune for the gazillionth time. 

"Slipping In" exudes a lo-fi industrial metal vibe over which our man Mol' berates his own sinful, corrupt state. He cites Nine Inch Nails and Henry Rollins as possible inspirations for this kind of rant, but it could have about as easily originated from any number of Christian hard music acts on labels such as Facedown or Bombworks. I can't say whether or what Moldover believes, but this cut should resonates in a spiritually positive manner (albeit via self-loathing, but hey, that worked for Martin Luther, too, yes?).   

Moldover's expansive, sometimes playful  explorations without lyrics likewise posit a gamut of human feelings against each other. It can exhilarate, or even evoke a wistfulness of ill ease that resonates as more than other keyboard & computer twiddlers either too self-serious or glib in their approach.

And if nothing else here grabs you, there's still that nifty CD case.

Jamie Lee Rake 

*-that friend? Christian rock journalist/bon vivant Tony Shore. Tthanks, guy! 
      
That Octamasher? View it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6VJ6RXroNE