"Oh, good," you're saying to yourself. "Weird instrumental rock from the Czech Republic." Even better (sigh), it's music that its makers call "compost rock," which turns out to be a pretty apt term: imagine a large pile of musical influences that includes everything from electronica to psychedelia to hardcore to prog, and that slowly collapses in on itself, producing a warm, fragrant, unified whole. Frankly, it's probably a good thing that this music is instrumental, since it's hard to imagine what kinds of words or sung melodies could go along felicitously with the strange, faintly dubwise "Le Grand Wazoo" or with "Sixplusone," which features synthesized marimba and ends up sounding like a cross between
Dinosaur Jr. and
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. "Ichtriol" doesn't go much of anywhere and doesn't offer much fun along the way, but "Rhodamine" cooks nicely and "Hymen" features both a fun 5/4 time signature and spooky,
Pere Ubu-flavored synthesizer noises -- and if there's one thing today's world could use more of, it's spooky,
Pere Ubu-flavored synthesizer noises (though whether it needs more songs titled "Hymen" is open to debate). Not bad at all.