The 2kDozen 500: #130 - Pinkunoizu, "Free Time!"

It albums with a syrupy, slightly disorienting Afro-pop weave and bubbling vocal/keyboard noise. From Copenhagen, but could be from Brooklyn - and there's a rich variety of details in the back- and foreground. That's "Time Is Like a Melody". It's followed by "Myriad Pyramid", which has the kaleidoscopic feel of later, more morose Beck stuff like The Information. It's fun. It has an Egyptological swagger and choral key changes that give me a little lurch in the guts.

"Cyborg Manifesto" is another promising title. It begins like a hi-speed Mexican version of Fleetwood Mac's Albatross, as he muses about pretending to be a machine. Ancient keyboards and engine samples kick off "Everything Is Broken or Stolen" (the title reflecting the age of the equipment), but if it is broken, it's limping along quite smoothly, picking up more and more pieces as it progresses. Quite a stately piece.

"Parabolic Delusions" racks up into a pop tempo, but still spills quirk and kook out of its sides with every corner. It is a restless, bubbly routine with bizarrely threatening lyrics that I can't quite pin down: "Like an endless loop/Of American troops/I will come for you." I think it's about how there is nothing new that anyone is doing; that all these rockstars are dispensible and shouldn't believe any hype saying otherwise.

They eat up a lot of ground too. Down-home casual psychedelic Vermont barn jams on "The Abyss". "Death Is Not a Lover" is really expansive stuff, Sahara big. A bit like those Tuareg rock bands that were the toast of the music supplements a few years ago. I like the "Death is not a lover/Oh, yes, she is" coda as well. Some effortless rock shapes are shrugged against the desert as satellites of aces catch light and burn across the sky. Trust me; that's what happens.

I suppose to myself (the best way to suppose while still getting to look like a jebend) that Pink Noise sums up their sound pretty well. Although there should be a lot more colours. It could be music for space exploration, or maybe to seek out weird fish at the bottom of some massive ocean. The closer, "Somber Ground", can even comfortably accommodate a saxophone. Like there's a shard of Roxy Music running down the middle of their pink, pink hearts.

Then the album winds down to a broken-tape mash of strips of all the tracks and leaves a wee hole in the side of my head. Really good. One of the best so far in 2012. Free time like it's an instruction.

Rating: Sahara out of Delight