Now is the time of year when people get sick. Know what? I'm sick. But before I bore you with another paragraph of self-pity, let me say that I'm getting better. The symptoms have been reduced to a full-body sweat, a feverish chill, a swirling nausea, lack of appetite and the occasional dry-heave vomit session.

This afternoon, as I lay on the couch watching a hypnotising episode of "Judge Mills Lane" (the one where the rich lady's dog, Buttercup, was mauled to death by this guy's Rottweilers), I thought, "What better way to cure my pain than by listening to the latest Thrill Jockey release? Ah, there it is!" My discman and headphones were being eaten by my fabulous $30 couch, and were stuffed under my pillow. Lying in the vicinity, Nobukazu Takemura's Scope.

I remember a few of Takemura's remixes-- most notably, his remix of Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag." They're usually crazed experimentations that leave behind only a fragment of the original song. I can't wait to see what happens when Takemura's given free reign to record whatever he wants.

Drifting in and out of peaceful but fevered sleep, I listened with great ease to the five lengthy tracks. For the first half hour of Scope, I was lulled into an electric dreamland with bizarre mid-'80s special effects. But somewhere, I've heard this stuff before... the 22-minute opener, "On a Balloon," sounds, well, exactly like a track off Oval's Dok. Exactly. And following, the 13-minute-long "Kepler" sounded remarkably like Tortoise's "Ten Day Interval" or Ghost's "Daggma."

Suddenly, at "Taw," Scope's third track, I shot up, stunned. Was this communication between primitive R2D2-type androids? Either that or some wanky moog experiment. After nine minutes of seemingly random robot noise, I find myself fast asleep once again. "Icefall" again cops Oval's trademark skipping CD noise, but uses it to a create a different effect-- this time, the skipping noise is a beautiful ambient coldness and is organized rhythmically. So, like Oval, but with sort of a Windy and Carl feel. Scope closes with the strangely medievil sounds of "Tiddler," the album's shortest track. In as few words as possible: ending music for an old Nintendo game.

It seems like Takemura's primary talent is building upon what's already been created by other artists. His concepts are taken directly from other artists, but what he creates with his concepts is pure talent. Except on "Taw," which is jarring and unwelcome in this record's otherwise harmonious soundscape. Well, I gotta go take some Advil Cold & Sinus. Ugh...

-Ryan Schreiber