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Someone Else

Pen Caps and Colored Pencils

(Foundsound; US: 5 Jun 2007; UK: Available as import)

The title refers to the pen caps and colored pencils lined up on the album cover, not to any leaning towards adolescence within the music. Then again, the electronic music Sean O’Neal creates is always playful—with Flowchart and Mall, and especially so now, with his current persona Someone Else. This is the epitome of playfulness within a controlled setting. The framework for Someone Else is minimalist techno—streamlined, bouncy, and funky, in a non-exhibitionist, unpretentious way. But on top of that is the sonic equivalent to those colored pencils: the squiggly sounds of musical laser beams and Slinkies, plus voices uttering indecipherable exclamations (not all that different from that ubiquitous, anonymous ‘80s teen-film music with that “oh yeah…chik-a-chik-ah” part). Someone Else’s debut album is certainly distinctive, combining sleekly modern, future-forward club music with that innate, childlike inclination to play with dirt and make funny noises with your mouth.

Rating:

Dave Heaton has been writing about music on a regular basis since 1993, first for college newspapers and DIY fanzines and now mostly on the Internet. In 2000, the same year he started writing for PopMatters, he founded the online arts magazine ErasingClouds.com, for which he is still the editor and main writer. He also writes music reviews for the print magazine The Big Takeover and has a blog column on their website, BigTakeover.com. He has a Bachelors degree in Journalism (1996) and a Masters degree in English (1999), both from Truman State University, in the underrated town of Kirksville, Missouri, Though he does enough music-listening and writing for it to be a full-time job, it is not one. He has held a series of editing, writing and business communications positions at small and large companies in Kansas, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He currently lives in Kansas City.


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