SERIGRAPHS

Demented genius David Bagsby's 2005 offering is an homage to his friend, artist Rob Smith, whose bizarre and deeply funny paintings & prints reveal a motif best described by the title of one of Mr. Smith's pieces: 'Oklahoma Gothic'. And though Bagsby's material does at times reflect the artwork, it is also a being unto itself, a world of whirling, ever-changing music that impresses a little more each time it's audited as he perpetually writes the soundtrack to some long lost interactive broadcast from another world, the signals trapped sailing through the cosmos.

Fans of progressive electronic stuff take note, this CD will be a wet tangerine dream but with a more aggressive approach and a wayward alien at the helm. 'Bondage' is a hideously delicious tech beat from an imaginary club where they dance to odd meters till dawn, gobble delicacies from different planets, and do designer drugs in private booths while unnatural acts are perpetrated. 'Twilight on Salsbury Plain' is pretty much just that, eerie and ominous, Bagsby's markers from early science fiction cinema evident, and flagship 'Oklahoma Gothic' returns to the cosmic danceclub but with more development and neat synth sounds. 'Potato Man's Techno Screenprinting System' is industrial as it blorps, kunks, mips, and b'zakts its way to Bagsby's dark church organ for 'Study of Praying Hands' tailed by the enormous, huge-footed cartoonisms of Ray Scott and his brazenly buffoonish bounce - an element underused on this disc - with some graveyard goodbyes at the end.

Overall a solid release from Dave Bagsby, of interest to synth enthusiasts and brave-minded progsters, and a good representation of the sound he has cultivated.