The name Pluramon has always brought to my mind some kind of insane animated character with a ball bouncing around in its torso and protruding through its elastic skin. It might also be a Pokémon existing in multiple realities simultaneously-- a plural-mon, if you will.

It's fitting, then, that in some ways, Pluramon (aka Marcus Schmickler of the A-Musik family of Cologne) music is the aural equivalent to those humorous and outrageous visualizations. Bit Sand Riders is not technically a Pluramon release, of course. It's a remix album of tracks from Pluramon's first two albums, Pickup Canyon and Render Bandits. Nevertheless, the analogy is apt in describing the contents of the record.

The lineup of remixers here is impressive in both caliber and diversity. It isn't everyday that you see Mogwai, the High Llamas, and FX Randomiz credited as having participated in the same project. And while it might appear that such disparity between contributors would be a detriment to an album's coherence, Bit Sand Riders maintains a surprisingly consistent feel throughout its progression.

Sensorama opens the record with a remix of "Flicker." Prior to obtaining this disc, I had no idea that Sensorama even existed. It was a pleasant surprise that their involvement in this project turned out to be a relatively impressive exercise in digital processing, similar to that of the Viennese Mego camp. Music like this is often written off as coldly intellectual or pretentious, but the truth is that the sonic palette and overall texture of the track are more immediately appealing than most pop songs, despite the lack of rhythm or melody.

Mogwai turn in a much more conventional interpretation of "Hintergrund," from the Render Bandits album. The original material is transformed into a half-goth/half-shoegazer groove hybrid, complete with trip-hop drum loop and tension building bridge. It's definitely a catchy tune, but it tends to become a little tedious after repeated listens, since there really isn't much meat to it aside from what's apparent on the first listen.

The decidedly quirky San Franciscan duo Matmos take a stab at "Hintergrund" as well, to a greater degree of success. In fact, the remix, entitled "Pluramonthermatmos," is one of the album's standouts. In addition to the source material from Render Bandits, Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt incorporate toy piano and banjo, among many other things, into their reworking. The result is an extremely dense drum-n-bass track with all the funny/interesting sound combinations we've come to expect from Matmos. The song is complex enough to provide hours of entertainment as an audio puzzle alone, but to top it off, it's also engaging and fun.

Other notable moments on the disc include Lee Ranaldo's breezy acoustic-riff-turned-frenetic-electronic-number, which employs material from the entirety of Render Bandits and, consequently, wins the prize for most hilarious song title for "Microchip, Shit! My Cock is Analog." SND, the Sheffield dyad, offer a catchy, bouncy track of glitches and overloads that's refreshingly straightforward. And providing the most annoying track on Bit Sand Riders is Mego's own Hecker, who comes through with the most grating (but lovable) sounds this side of Pita. But then, who could top Merzbow in the exasperating noise department?

If there's any noteworthy downside to Bit Sand Riders, it's that there's a lot to digest. David Byrne has been known to say that it isn't easy for anyone to listen to more than six tracks in one sitting, and he might even lower that figure when the concept is applied to IDM fare. The upside, of course, is that every track stands on its own as an individual presentation of the material that inspired it. Even if you're unfamiliar with Pluramon's discography, Bit Sand Riders is an absorbing and, more importantly, enjoyable listen, regardless of genre specificity.

-Michael Wartenbe