Dreamland Idle Orchestra

Tatsuya Yoshida's ode to a Japanese theme park is a delightful masterpiece. Yoshida constantly shifts from genre to genre, employing a mind-bending number of musical styles and hybrids. Symphonic strings, optimistic electronic tones, synthetic singing saws, fractured feedback, live-wire drums, and madcap lo-fi beeps and beats are the primary ingredients. It's what Yoshida does with these ingredients that makes his music so magical. The bubbly punch of "Exhausted Machine" is fitted with massive, excellent clicks and clatter, yet the song seems classically refined despite its raging roboticism and fluttering bass heart. "Brown Skywalker" feels like the work of a video-game theme composer from the future. It's a cool, sprightly Zelda-esque jaunt that's fit with blindingly bold melodies that rocket every which way. The evocative, calm gurgling of "It's Next Step Toward Nothing" is so mournful that it could induce tears. The title song and "Incredible Journey in My Flying Saucer" are impossibly sweet, sunny, and touching. "March of the DIO" builds feedback, distortion, and racing keyboard notes into a lush, gorgeous stormer of a song. As playful and funky as the sonic trickery of Cornelius, as complex and melodic as the brilliant IDM of Mike Paradinas, and as emotionally sweeping as the finest compositions of classicists Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, the songs of Dreamland Idle Orchestra seem capable of inspiring a new generation of gadget-loving composers. There's genius around every turn of this imaginative, superb album.