Peruvian-born artist
M. Caye Castagnetto
architects a strange new world on their debut album
Leap Second
, building songs from samples that clash soft, organic instrumentation with murky electronics and surreal atmospheres.
Castagnetto
worked with musicians like
Beatrice Dillon
and
Aileen Bryant
in the creation of the source material for these wobbly, nocturnal songs, boiling down the sounds into the samples that make up
's ten concise selections. The span of time spent on the album shows up in how stylistically varied it can be from track to track. The warped, buzzy instrumental "Slippery Snakes" wiggles around like a demented take on surf music, with rock instrumentation battling agitated electronic noise the entire time. Moments later, a mostly wordless "Mi Mentira" floats in a hazy dusk, with an airy guitar loop, rustling drums, and eerie cello parts colliding with several burbling synth lines. "All Points North" sounds like
Nico
singing over an early track from
Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice
, completely breaking from the sound of the rest of the album. The mood shifts almost song to song on
. "Until" is a blown-out and brooding track somewhere between
Diamanda Galas
and the
Sun City Girls
, but
also pulls out almost playful moments like the shattered strut of "I Invented Disco" and the darkly dreamy groove of "Hands on the Business."
feels like a filing cabinet full of layers and contrasting ideas, but it's surprisingly warm for how chaotically composed it sometimes seems. The album washes by quickly, and with repeat listening it becomes clear that all the strange detours and unrelated segments are connected by
's curiosity and daring. ~ Fred Thomas