Micro-Awakenings

Micro-Awakenings is nearly 90 minutes of brief experiments by Medicine mastermind Brad Laner, recorded between 2003 and 2009 and originally planned for release on a label connected with Mutant Sounds, a blog that posted hundreds of obscure and out of print experimental records and cassettes. After the release fell through, the blog made the album available for download in 2013. Three years later, the album was finally pressed to vinyl thanks to Drawing Room Records. While the 2013 download contained 61 tracks, most of which were under two minutes each, the 2016 vinyl issue presents the music as four side-long montages. All of the pieces are instrumental (although Laner's son's voice appears at one point near the end of side three), and they seem to represent nearly every style of music the prolific musician has tackled over the years. There's shoegaze and space rock, of course, and there are parts that could've easily been developed into alternative pop songs. There are a few short passages of eerie ambient drifting. There's frazzled glitch and thumpy techno, similar to his work as Electric Company, which released a huge pile of albums for Tigerbeat6, Planet Mu, Vinyl Communications, and even a major label or two. There are several incredibly playful moments that could easily soundtrack the next Katamari video game. There's a bit that sounds like Laraaji's transcendent zither playing, except Laner is playing guitar. The end of the second side is a dark, haunting electro-acoustic section that could have been composed for some sort of disturbing art film. But then the third side starts with a jaunty number featuring gamelan percussion. Laner continues defying logic throughout the release. Just when something starts to sound too ominous, a cheerful melody or some fractured, crunchy drums will appear out of nowhere. It's hard to tell if these pieces were deliberately sequenced to sound schizophrenic, or if they were grabbed from his hard drive and ordered at random. It hardly matters, though, as the results are often stunning, and never predictable.