OOIOO -wt Kila Kila Kila -wl Thrill Jockey -wf During one of my previous attempts to review this album, I came up with the analogy that OOIOO is what Tortoise would sound like if John McEntire was an insane Japanese woman. Trying to compose a review around this statement revealed its inherent flaw: Tortoise, in its many sonic incarnations, is eminently listenable; OOIOO is not. Give a listen to “Ene Soda” for instance. It’s built around five minutes of sampled soda fizz and an overabundance of ringing chimes. It plays out like a new age Coca Cola commercial. Its effortless, pleasant formlessness is incredibly grating. It’s almost as if the band is so laidback they’re oblivious that neither the ride nor the destination is worth the listening time. -wm Conversely, the latter half of the disc is the band at their peak. They create and abide by an imaginary fence around their playground. The spastic recess anthem “On Moni,” the amorphous, expansively epic “Aster” (which plays out like a little sister to Tortoise’s “Djed”) and the chirping electronics, cascading piano and slipstream drums of “Anuenue Au” are all testaments to this, and affirm OOIOO as a vital post-rock presence. These songs make for excellent background or foreground music while the rest of the album might be better enjoyed at a distance, like from somewhere slightly over the horizon. -wd Thrill Jockey: http://www.thrilljockey.com/ -wb Aaron Shaul