Pitchfork

"Oh, I just like the sound of your voice." This is Pattern Is Movement's Andrew Thiboldeaux, on "Sound of Your Voice", singing to someone never clearly identified. Is it a lover? An enemy? A friend? It doesn't matter who the object of his sonic affection is in the context of the song, because the line functions more as a manifesto for Thiboldeaux's band, which was once a quintet but is now down to a duo of him and drummer Chris Ward. By the warped internal logic that guides PIM's music, "I just like the sound of your voice" could be a reason to love someone until death.

Pattern Is Movement is all about sound, or rather sounds, plural. Their music is best described as modular, building complete songs from sub-units of melody and beat. The result is out there, but it doesn't seem pretentious because of the giddy single-mindedness with which the band attacks the concept-- it's the sound of the voice he likes and not the person speaking-- the voice isn't used to tell a story. It's used as an instrument, the same way everything else is in their music-- which these days consists mostly of drums and a big pile of vintage keyboards-- is used.

The album opens with a sudden burst of strangely contoured melody; Ward brings in a sharp rock beat shortly after the opening fanfare, re-contextualizing the melody rhythmically, as Thiboldeaux surrounds his own voice with a keyboard-generated choir. The song builds and builds to an abrupt ending. Ward alternately uses his drums to pull all the disparate phrases together in a steady rhythm and as yet another phrase to fit into the overall interlocking pattern. On "Trolley Friend", he does both, creating a simple beat to shepherd the bubbling keyboard phrases and lava flow bass into a neat rhythm track and then delivering a thunderous tom roll to back the chorus, if the stuttering, off-kilter section of the song that follows the beat-driven section can be described as such. If nothing else, swings such as these demonstrate how well the band has honed its sense of drama. "Sylvia" offers further testament, delivering arcing vocal phrases over a steady beat and constantly shifting keyboard textures that continually cast the vocals in a new light.

It takes special musicians to make a sound like this work, but three LPs into their career, Thiboldeaux and Ward seem to have it figured out, creating an accessible album that nonetheless sounds unlike anything any other band is doing. Scott Solter, co-producing the band for the second time, has the sound figured out as well, lending the album a clear, direct character that emphasizes the contrasts between density and sparseness at the heart of PIM's work.