This is Communication - S/T (Kimberly Dawn 3" CD-R)

Another tiny disc that packs a wallop from Kim Dawn and their miniature vaults, this one is by one Jeremy Walker, who apparently works mostly in homemade electronics, though you wouldn't guess it from the numbers presented here. Which isn't to say there's not plenty of electro-business to be found, it just serves the purpose of bolstering the pop backbone of Walker's material. These are songs to be sure (and thrilling ones at that) that are surprisingly dense considering their listenability.

Made up of 11 tunes the disc ranging from the lengthy (over seven minutes) opener, a buoyant, almost shoe-gazey go of it that moves from full on forward revelry to slow builds over Townshend style circle strums to the nothing dabbles of the 16 second eighth track. In fact, the whole thing seems to move from impressively conceived tracks that are fully realized to little demonstrations of specific sounds, an intriguing and off kilter organizing principle.

The pop material here is especially vibrant, with track two's electric shards backing a melody that would be right at home on any of a number of Animal Collective/Pavement pawning folks, though Walker's go of it is no rip-off. This is a highly founded voice with a delivery that is as mournful as it is earnest. The electronics go nuts too, somehow managing to never turn the record into an electro-based album. There's never nay question these are pop tunes no matter how overzealous it may get. Even when it all breaks up into straight noise freak out it never loses course, jumping immediately into another pop rock gem on the third number, a mix of Built to Spill guitar thrill and epic lo-fi construction. Pretty amazing really. As the disc begins to break down it gets increasingly abstract, sliding into spare electronic demos that move from one to another with deceptive ease--and somehow the feel remains. The fifth number, for it's 15 or so seconds, sounds like some night life neon soundtrack, as does the sixth, each skipping out right in the middle of itself and losing sight before sliding into the melancholic carnival of the seventh track, the near 80s ballad hints on track eight, the "Toxicity"-style guitar on the ninth, with warbling echoes to boot, and the hollow, new age loomings of track ten. Closes it out with a mini melody that's as feint as air and as hard to find as sugar in tea. And then it cuts out. And that's it. Surely one of the wildest sequences I've heard in a while, but totally successful on all fronts. Crazy one, once you pop you don't stop.