3 out of 5

Produced by: John McEntire

Label: Thrill Jockey

Man, the back half of this album is such a distinct experience from its leading half that it’s hard to imagine the album, as a whole, working with any particular rearrangement of tracks.

Radian’s Juxtaposition’s construction is interesting as heck: the group having recorded electronic elements to be played back over traditional instruments, the latter of which were then captured by Tortoise guy John McEntire in his Chicago studios.  And the interest definitely extends beyond the description, as Radian represent this fascinating bridge between Tortoise’s more organic (early) stuff and their TNT-era manipulations, dusted with a particular icy abstraction that’s Radian’s calling card.  This presents in a couple of formats: of roboticized guitar / bass / clatter grooves, and of noisescapes of static and shuffling and scratches and ephemera.  Both are fascinating, but it truly becomes something driving when the styles meet, which they do, to varying degrees , on tracks 1-5.  Opener Shift fuzzes through dry, open-ended scrapes and buzzing, building tension until an excellent release of head-bobbing bass and synths and tapping drums; Vertigo goes the early Tortoise route of tones and a drifting low end, masterfully manipulated with Radian’s selection of electronic oddities.  These two templates are juggled and morphed for those five tracks.  But after the gorgeous crawl of Helix, Juxtaposition – I guess if you want to give the album’s name credit for being accurate – changes tracks.  There are some grooves left (Tester is another brilliant build and release), but otherwise the remaining tracks are very much noise.  Interesting noise of clicks and static, but much more dissected than what came before.  And the album just marinates in these sounds for the most part, no longer focused on finding a rhythm from disparate elements so much as exploring the space around those elements.

The work is layered, and interesting – and definitely listenable – but, man, I just cannot sync it with the album’s first half, resulting in my attentions dissipating once I hit the midway point.  Split as two EPs, I think the separated experiences would be equally powerful, but it truly limits the reach of the disc – juxtaposition purposeful or not – by hanging the halves together.