Skeletons - Money (Tomlab)

This is an album that takes a lot of listens before the initial cacophonous mix of improvised and "found" sounds begins to separate out into tracks with distinct moods, strengths and weaknesses. The main strains (themes?) that eventually emerge are very much of an avant-garde nature.

Much of the album is rooted in jazz. Stepper A.K.A. Work, Booom! (Money!), Unrelentingness and The Masks are prime examples, containing improvised breaks, saxophones, brass etc. The jazz is sometimes supplemented with a funky edge, most notably on The Things - the most accessible track here, approachable and therefore the most enjoyable of this collection.

More funkiness can be found on the rhythmic, upbeat but overlong centrepiece track Booom! (Money!), which frustrates with its constant switches in pace and mood; and on the bassline featured on album closer Eleven (It'll Rain).

Lyrically only the odd snippet stands out ("Fill my pockets full / My fridge with food / But I don't have the time to eat" from Fill My Pockets Full; "What I really wanted / Was a big box of normal" from Stepper A.K.A. Work; "This house is dripping / This house is watery" from Dripper; "Skin you're in should feel good" from The Masks) but somehow the overriding impression is that this is an album with a theme (even, dare I say "concept"). Certainly what seems to emerge is a sense of malaise and dissatisfaction with modern life, although this is not a band given to spelling things out in words of one syllable for the sake of their audience.

Skeletons are at their most experimental on Fill My Pockets Full, with its noisy and ultimately grating car horn noise collage; Ripper A.K.A. The Pillows, featuring weird, fragmented and dissonant instrumental sequences of seemingly random noises; Dripper, which neatly replicates the sound of dripping rain, but also features a peculiar falsetto vocal; and Unrelentingness with its off-piste droning, deliberately off-key harmonies.

On such flights of fancy it becomes more of an intellectual exercise for the listener, as one is left trying to work out, or understand, the intention behind the creation of such music (and this is undoubtedly music made with intent: it is much to deliberately put together to have come about haphazardly or incidentally), rather than listening to enjoy.

That said, The Things, Stepper A.K.A. Work, and The Masks are all songs that will stay with me and will probably get repeated listenings. This is an album that challenges you, and makes you want to understand more, which in today's disposable-pop world is probably not entirely a bad thing.

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