The Octopus Project Hello, Avalanche

The Octopus Project work primarily with two emotions - childlike wonder roughly in the vein of bands such as CocoRosie (though presented through distinctly different means), and straight up joy, such as that heard on both of The Go! Team's albums. The band's utter lack of irony in their approach to these emotions gives the music an innocent charm - artwork and track titles all suggest that the band is really having a wonderful time in the musical world they have constructed, and would love it if the listener would join them.

Musically, Hello, Avalanche is an ecstatic mix of organic and electronic instruments, including bells, guitars, synths, programmed and live drums, and virtuoso theramin, along with the occasional live string or horn. Though the album's palate of sounds is still fairly eclectic, the overall sound of the album is generally more focused than on their previous album, One Ten Hundred Thousand Million. For the most part, songs develop in the style of electronica, starting with a simple melody and beat, and expanding from there, while also featuring guitars that would not sound of place in a post-rock band. On a few tracks, the band slows down considerably and allows the variety and novelty of its instrumentation to come to the forefront, such as the multi-tracked theramin of I Saw the Bright Shinies.

The band's most distinctive aspect, especially on their latest album, is the energy and enthusiasm with which they play, such as in the first single, Truck, in which a giddy 8-bit synth melody dances around an equally excitable guitar line, all supported by enormously splashy drums and a furious pace. The song sounds thrilled with itself and with its own infectious joy. This track is followed by the slower-paced Bees Bein' Strugglin', whose chiming bells and reverb-drenched guitar drive are joined by exuberant squiggles of electronic noise. Its probably worth noting that by the middle of this track on my first listen, I felt the need to call a friend to inform him that this was "the best thing ever," (a statement I don't know if I'd still go so far as to make) while dancing furiously around my empty room. The energy of the album drops of slightly from this point on, with the exception of the simultaneously raucous and droning Ghost Moves.

On the final track, Queen, the band sings for the first time. It's a lovely moment - the band doesn't have the best voices in the world, but the relaxed pace of the song allows for a laid back delivery which evokes the childish wonder of the album as a whole. The song is a sort of technology-abetted lullaby, in which the prospect of digital future is not cold or worrying, but warm and vaguely silly. In general, this mirrors the album as a whole - its electronics openly display their human origins. It's the inverse of Battles' fantastic Mirrored - while that album squeezed technology and humanity together in a similarly giddy fashion, it did so in a precise and controlled way far removed from the ramshackle DIY enthusiasm of Hello, Avalanche. But both make for wonderful listening.