Man or Astro-man? – A Spectrum of Infinite Scale
(Touch & Go)

A Spectrum Of Infinite Scale is a bit of a departure for the Astro-dudes. They continue to push the envelope of sci-fi surf rock further and further; this time around they come across sounding like a mixture of Trans Am, Sonic Youth, and Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd you ask? Well, yes, for some reason this album seems to hold a somewhat psychedelic feel for me. Their latest guitarist, Trace Reading, who took over for Starcrunch after Made From Technetium, has long been accused of being a hippie, and I can’t help but think that he has had a large influence on how this album turned out.

There is even a blatant reference to Pink Floyd with the song title “Many Pieces Of Large Fuzzy Mammals Gathered Together At A Rave And Schmoozing With A Brick”.Maybe it’s just the whole “spectrum” theme and the abstract cover artwork that has me thinking along these lines. Incidentally, the cover also seems like it could be a reference to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album. Astro fans know that these certainly aren’t the first allusions Man or Astro-man have made to Pink Floyd.

Regardless, there is still an underlying surf sound to the guitars, with plenty of reverb and spaciness but at times the album feels a little bit more mellow than past MOA releases. Almost every song starts with some distant noises or quiet sound effects and then slowly builds itself up. There are not as many scorching, robotic power chords here, rather the emphasis is on textured single picking guitars layed over top of various beeps and whistles.

Sadly, MOA have done away with the b-movie sound clips that made their past albums so much fun. I guess after a while they can grow tiresome, but still, there were a trademark of sorts. There are a lot of interesting sound effects mixed in with the songs, but for the most part they give it a distant, eerie feel.

There is a lot of experimentation here. The only non-instrumental track, “Within One Universe There Are Millions”, features singing by a computer, and “Spectrograph Reading Of The Varying Phantom Frequencies Of Chronic, Incurable Tinnitus” has Coco freaking out with a theremin. Not to mention the song “A Simple Text File”, which has received a lot of attention for the fact that it is done entirely with a dot matrix printer. And in case you haven’t noticed, the song titles are some of the strangest and longest yet.

Some of the more aggressive tracks are “Song of the Two-Mile Linear Particle Accelerator Stanford University, Stanford, California”, “Preparation Clont”, and the “Trapezoid” song. Also worth checking out is the “Obligatory Part 2 Song In Which There Is No Presently Existing Part 1, Nor The Plans To Make One”, which has tons of weird sound effects mixed in with a spy surf guitar riff.

The big drum sound on this album is great, and once again most of the songs are held together by Birdstuff’s tight drumming. Just check out the track “Um Espectro Sem Escala” for an example of his creativity and power.

My first reaction to this cd was one of disappointment, but I have really grown to like it a lot. I still don’t believe that it is their best work, and I still think there are a few throwaway tracks on here, but overall it is an interesting and unique journey through space and time. Or something like that. Just buy it, jerk. — Sean

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