In order to bank the alluring promise of our pauseless why-wait-for-anything culture, we suffer a huge trade-off. Pop culture moves at such speed that artistic maturity has become a slur. The majority of consumers and record company executives are not willing to allow artists sufficient space and time to realize their unique visions. It really is all about the Benjamins. Who will know whether Jennifer Lopez has something insightful to say about post-Cold War America when all she gets to release is "Love Don't Cost a Thing," a blatant retread of Brandy and Monica's "The Boy is Mine?"

Electronic artists are more fortunate than their Entertainment Tonight-spotlighted peers in pop. At least within the electronic strands, musicians can ally themselves with art-music, a domain where Pantene'd popettes are few and far between. In this space, and over several releases, electronic artists can find their voice. Occasionally, an artist will bewilder us by seeming to have hit the ground running. Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works I still strikes me as a remarkably complete piece and doubly astounds when I remember that it was Richard James' debut album. Though Music Has a Right to Children gave the impression of coming out of nowhere, perfectly formed, the Boards of Canada worked their way through and discarded over 800 pieces before setting on the masterly 18 that comprise their debut's incontrovertible achievement.

But rather than hitting the ground running, or being born perfectly formed, Jake Mandell has preferred to grow up in public. His debut, Parallel Processes, though never plagiaristic, sees Mandell experimenting with templates and styles. The record, in hindsight, sounds a lot like Mandell challenging himself, and, in comparison to his third release, Love Songs for Machines, is a protein-algorithm-inspired workbench study, a series of successful, but ultimately unrevealing can-I-pull-this-off's.

Mandell's second album, Quondam Current-- recorded for the tough crowd-pleaser, Force Inc-- displays Mandell's competency to glitch and stomp with the technoscenti. The album's in harmony with Force Inc's mech-aesthetic and leaves me technically impressed, but no wiser as to what Mandell is about. Like the majority of Force Inc albums, the artist's personality is entirely suppressed and the culture-tectonics of implant-society and cyborg-body-politics are the only subjects.

Flipping over to yet another label, Carpark, Mandell now issues Love Songs for Machines and, for the first time, we can begin to appreciate him for who he is and what he has to say, rather than gasp at his emulation of Oscar Sala or a pneumatic drill. His third album is not one predicated on a display of technique. Though Love Songs for Machines supports a great deal of technical accomplishment, at no point is its goal to flaunt this prowess. He's got that out of his system. I agree that Mandell has skillfully sliced and diced the voices that populate "Tender Growth From Random Seed," but like the Boards of Canada's "Telephasic Workshop," that's not the reason for their inclusion. Each listener will have his or her own interpretation of what those looped syllables signify, but we can all agree that they lend a bewitching ambience to the jittering surface out of which they dance.

"From the Chestnut Parapet" is another Boards-indebted mood piece. More contemplative and eerie than the rest of the album, this track avoids the rarified, rune-skilled Enya-isms that trouble the otherwise intriguing "Divinity Takes a Dive." Far removed from such precious themes, "The Surf and the Circus" is dancefloor techno without the tribal stomp and the Brave New World pallor that clutter most examples of the style. "Tragedy Tears the Triarchy" could legitimately claim some descent from the Basic Channel/Hardwax collective, but its lineage is disputable due to Mandell's infusion of novel textural and melodic genetic material into the genome. Along similar lines, "Two Doses of Diometic Hexameter" reminds me of the odd melodic statements Mike Paradinas achieved under his µ-Ziq guise on In Pine Effect.

The unquestioned masterpiece of the album is "The Fragmented Icon," which, like the 3-D construction-netted Madonna and Child of the cover art, is sublime beauty, unraveled and reconstructed to an original design. The bassline echoes some Cabaret Voltaire and Richard H. Kirk releases, but the surrounding material references Funkstörung, Bola, and Aphex Twin without ever aping them. It's a pity that the track lasts for a mere three-and-a-half minutes before vanishing.

The album sounds less to me less like expressions of love for machines, and more like love for music and the highest of human aspirations, expressed through the deft use of machines. Mandell's chosen title and the explanatory essay in the booklet strike me as odd and rather disingenuous, as though he's embarrassed to have achieved such a successful transition to true musicianship. The record proves that Mandell is no longer subservient to technique and he no longer has to pay his dues to a tradition or guild. His two previous albums have schooled him how to use his machines. He has reached the transcendent point where he has the ability fulfill his aspirations. Like all great musicians past and present, Mandell can now begin to express himself without meaninglessly exercising his skills or performing aural mathematics like so many post-rock poseurs.

In this time when artists' names are no more than marketing identifiers (J-Lo, Posh Spice, Timo Maas), it's liberating to have the chance to follow a musician's development. I realize that Love Songs for Machines is not the final statement Mandell has to make. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to anticipate truly astounding things from him in the future.

-Paul Cooper