P as in Peter, F as in Frank

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Secret Agent Gel gives two instructions for how to approach the music on 'P as in Peter, F as in Frank': listen to it from start to finish and in stereo. The latter is innocuous enough. It was the former, along with the spy-vs.-spy band name, that made me wonder if the disc would reveal some kind of coded message that can only be decrypted through uninterrupted listening.

While no hidden meaning surfaced during my repeated trips through all 15 tracks, I did discover that describing the disc as a whole and placing it into a genre were significant challenges. I could pull out bits of sound images from my memory - the raining electronic percussion of 'trk E' or the jazzy pulse of scraping static on 'trk A', for example - but wrapping it all up into a neat package remained elusive.

This amnesiac quality is by no means the result of boredom or disinterest. Rather, it seems to have come from Secret Agent Gel's expert creation and mixing of tracks that simultaneously sound disparate but also somehow slightly related. In addition to the sound bites above, there are the sterile, echoing blips of a submarine's depth finder causing inner-ear claustrophobia on 'trk 1' and the uneasy mix of bird songs, special-bulletin newscasts, and keyboard washes on 'trk F', recalling Skinny Puppy's 'Blood on the Wall' and 'Epilogue'. Sampled individually, each track sounds as if it might have come from different artists. Lined up on this disc, however, there is no inconsistency among them - Secret Agent Gel makes the links and connections seamless.

The end result? 'P as in Peter, F as in Frank' is a guided journey through shifting landscapes and landmarks of abstract electronic beats. You can see clearly how you travel from point A to point B in real time, but once you've reached the end of the disc, you can't look back and easily describe where you've been. Consider it encouragement to go back and keep exploring and unraveling.