Pitchfork

The post-Aphex Twin school of melodic electronic music dictates that tenderness and tunefulness are always cut with at least a pinch of creepiness. It's the "childlike" thing, you know, where warm fuzzies exist with monsters lurking either underneath the bed or, depending, a couple of doors down the hall. Austin's Octopus Project comes at electronic-age nostalgia from another angle. Here on this preview from their upcoming full-length, it's all bubbly champagne music from back when America was drinking the cheap stuff, until popping percussion thirsting for Hot Butter comes in to politely move things along. The lovely Theremin lead, like Florian Schneider's processed flute on the second side of Kraftwerk's Autobahn, suggests that technology just might save us after all.

[From an as-yet untitled album due 10/9/07 on Peek-A-Boo]