When conceiving his solo projects, David Thomas is like some crackpot logician, always ignoring standardized musical equations and practical methods. He consistently seems determined to reinvent the Rubic's Cube of rock-- a rare feat accomplished by Pere Ubu's groundbreaking 1978 album, Dub Housing. Dub Housing took a long time for people to figure out and accept, if they ever did get it at all. In time, however, more and more bands would pick up on the anti-formulaic formulas that the original Pere Ubu sound was founded upon, and make their own alterations and improvements upon it. In the meantime, Thomas and Pere Ubu leaned gradually closer towards the conventional, and never really reaped the rewards they deserved from those original obscure blueprints they drafted.

While Pere Ubu's last couple of studio albums could almost be called straightforward and pop-oriented, Thomas' latest aural conundrums haven't exactly been accessible or obvious by conventional standards. Erewhon, Thomas' 1996 collaboration with the Pale Orchestra, 1999's Mirror Man, and Bay City (recorded with Foreigners), are, in a sense, installments of the same semi-predictable weirdness that has marked his solo work.

Thomas has yet to equal 1987's Blame the Messenger as a solo artist, largely because he hasn't been afforded the contributions of ex-Ubu members bassist Tony Maimone and keyboardist Allen Ravenstine. Sadly, his brand of musical and lyrical unpredictability is becoming more and more predictable, especially compared against his entire body of work. But most of what Thomas generally involves himself with is even more forward-thinking than most bands' attempts at aesthetic progress.

Bay City is much more of a consummate musical endeavor than last year's mediocre multimedia project, Mirror Man, with thankfully less emphasis on the annoying Beat poetry (i.e. no Bob Holman featured here). And more so than Mirror Man, Bay City can be an interesting puzzle to solve: after all, it's still part disjointed narrative, with the obscure coffee-house spoken-word element still somewhat intact. Basically, it's a minimalist extravaganza, set to a soundtrack that-- similar to the Pere Ubu of yesteryear-- manages to smack of an "experimental" rock conglomeration of Velvets-influenced art-rock, mixed with primal tribal rhythms, and the occasional free-jazzy and oddly melodic Albert Ayler-ism. Thankfully, Thomas doesn't break much new ground here in formless experimental tedium. If that's what you want, turn to Thurston Moore.

Minimal, concise melodies are often firmly in place, but are, again, conventional by Pere Ubu standards. But at least here, they don't sound like mere melodic accidents made by musicians splattering improvised notes across the album. The song structures can occasionally come a little unhinged, but they always manage to lock themselves back into place at just the right moment. And things rarely get to that crucial point where someone's idea of high art begins to sound like nothing more than hash-stoked rednecks making random squealing noises on various wind instruments, and some small child pounding on phone books with No.2 pencils.

David Thomas has toned down his formerly off-the-register vocals. Remember back when he used to attempt singing while being anally-probed by his alien captors? Now he keeps things restrained to maybe a faint whisper, or moderate talk-singing, with only scant traces of his lunatic high-end warbling. Overall, this isn't anything you wouldn't expect from Thomas, and nothing you'd really expect of anyone else besides maybe Tom Waits. Bay City could be a continuation or extension of Mirror Man, yet it most certainly improves upon that album's largely spotty avant-garde bent.

And I suppose I'd say Bay City was, as a whole, still a tad pretentious. Except for the fact that David Thomas has always taken the very idea of pretension and deformed and twisted it into so many damn intricate knots over the years that it doesn't even resemble pretentiousness anymore. Besides, the brand of alternative pretension on Bay City thankfully precludes long stretches of sheer wrist-slashing boredom, which is always a plus.

-Michael Sandlin