Someone Else: Pen Caps and Colored Pencils

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.