3 out of 5

Label: Expert Work Records

Produced by: Patrick Doyle (mixed by)

Chill ambient post-rock from Midwest band ping-pongers Justin Nardy and Tom Ramsey, about which I think I should have much more to say… but I don’t know that my ears are smart enough for all that.

Somewhere along the axis of pre-TNT Tortoise, latter-day Turing Machine, and Tristeza-type Thrill Jockey grooves, the 2018-2022 collected tracks on 21,000,000,000,000 give me at least one solid takeaway: pay attention to Justin Nardy. A complete aside which should bear no weight on a review, but coming in to Expert Work Records 30+ releases in, I’d taken Nardy – label runner – as a Midwest rock fanboy, taking his experience in maybe a couple bands and applying it to an appreciation for the underheard and out-of-print from his scene, giving them a place on his label. And while the description of the label may be somewhat accurate, brushing Nardy off as a fanboy is way off base: his name is all over his label, but not in some vainglorious way. These are / were accomplished acts, quite distinct from one another, and acting more as a lynchpin for bringing in the other artists than just a starting point. The way this is related to a review is that I was admittedly expecting something a bit more hardhitting from Justin, and was quite taken aback by Twenty One Trillion’s laid back vibe.

I would say it was a positive effect, as this type of music is still very much in my wheelhouse and thus a pleasant surprise, but despite multiple listens, I really couldn’t dig out much depth. There’s maybe something to the music having been recorded over such a long period that undermines any immediacy; the very point of it seems to be to take its time, with some loping drums and electronics blended, seamlessly, with guitar lines for 5- to 7-minute runs. It’s the kind of disc where you look at the instrument list and can’t count them all on two hands, but also can’t really hear more than the base elements in the recording itself. In a way, that’s an accomplishment: it’s very smooth. On the other hand, it essentially effects an elevator music take on instrumental rock.

But: your ears may pull much more from this approach than mine. Digital contains a remix of one of the album’s more upbeat tracks, Sugar Cubes, but I can’t say it does anything notable with it – and the fact that it is already the most upbeat track feels a bit like a cheat.