According to a coupleparagraphs' worth fcof nonsense in the liner notes, "The Wolves'Hollow" is some kind of concept album involving wolves from outerspace. I honestly couldn't see the connection with the wolves, exceptfor samples of wolves howling, snarling, or squealing every now andthen.It's a strange listen. All the beats are mutated beyond descriptioninto clicks, snicks, slurps, and a very familiar boing that I suspectwas plucked from the old Nintendo game Metroid (another featuredelement in the liner notes). Beautiful melodies weave in out of nowhereand leave just as suddenly -- just as Marumari gets a groove going, itfades out, comes back, reverses itself, speeds up, disappears entirelyinto the layers of background noise. Towards the end of the album therough-and-tumble, loping beats fade into hums and drones, strangemumbles and burbles. I don't mean for it to sound like I'm describingMouse on Mars, though the same feeling is there at times; there aremore straight-ahead rock-on moments and less goofy-fun analogtwiddling, on the whole.
Sometimes electronic music is so unintelligible or inhuman that evenspeculating about its motivation is pointless. Despite this album'stendency to wander in strange directions and sometimes get flat-outweird, I never lost the feeling that someone was behind it all, happily(if inexpertly) pushing buttons and twirling knobs. Confusing, maybe,but Marumari brings a brand of playfulness to his music I've yet tocome across anywhere else. He's not cheeky or smart-assed like ?-Ziq orAphex Twin, or gleefully juvenile and iconoclastic like Kid606 or V/VM.Instead, it's the wide-eyed, naive, incomprehensible joy of (I suppose)alien cyborg puppies.
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