There is no other way to say it—this CD is a total head scratcher. What you have here is thirty-six tracks of instrumental trip-hop peppered with vignettes that loosely narrate a war in America which results in all of our celebrities being rounded up in an internment camp. Curiously, I found the concept to be larger than what this CD could deliver. I could totally see this being adapted into a movie or graphic novel, which seems to be the direction that the creators were moving towards with this release, as it includes a nicely illustrated, full-color, fold-out comic that fleshes out the story a bit more than the vignettes and their titles. For some reason, the whole enchilada reminds me of what Richard Kelly was working towards with his criminally overlooked Southland Tales graphic novels and feature film from 2006 (well worth checking out if you are into dystopian near-futures), even though there are few thematic similarities. 86’d Records should be commended for taking a risk for putting out something like this.
–Garrett Barnwell (86’d, 86drec.com)