Messy Waves

"Confusing" and "frantic" are not generally adjectives that figure prominently in a positive review, but they're attributes that work well to describe the really pretty engaging music of Japanese producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Robert Edwin. This is his first full-length release, and you can tell it's the work of a singles artist: stylistically it's all over the map, the common feature that binds the tracks together being a sort of all-purpose sonic adventurousness that leads him equally willingly into house, punk, hip-hop, prog rock, and avant pop territories. Not everything is brilliant, but the high points are seriously impressive: the claustrophobic "From Moomin Valley," which sounds like a collaboration between John Zorn and Birdsongs of the Mesozoic; the startlingly tuneful and fun "My World"; the hip-hoppy "One" and "Tisei"; the frenetic "Shake on It." The less successful moments vary in quality from slightly tedious ("Out of Body Experience") to rather wanky and self-indulgent (the unforgivably proggy "Spot On"), but even when he fails he generally does so in ways that are genuinely interesting to hear.