Don't Panic flyer packs have become something of a staple in the London club circuit. They come in static-resistant plastic bags (originally created for storing sensitive PC motherboards), and contain an assortment of worthless eye-candy, lots of handbills for garage parties with tacky names, and the occasional piece of redeeming information. The sweaty, strung-out club kids end up scattering the good stuff onto the sidewalk along with the bad; and thus, it was on a sidewalk that I discovered Pilote-- or more precisely, a poster of his-- while staggering home late one fateful Friday.

Now, this poster I found, I'd never seen anything quite like it-- an absurd jumble of faceless people posing in a parking lot, a chimpanzee trying to squash a frog, and a flock of seagulls thrown in for good measure. What struck me hardest, though, was the image's spooky, almost fauvist flatness. It vaguely reminded me of Banksy's artwork-- an ultra-urban form of post-graffiti referencing several other visual genres. I couldn't find words to describe the poster, which was precisely why I picked it up, brought it home and pasted it on my wall. I wasn't certain I actually liked the way it looked, but it spoke an aesthetic language totally foreign to me, and I found it refreshing to stare at.

While rifling through CDs at a local record shop a few days later, the image came back to haunt me. There they were: the grotesquely two-dimensional, faceless pink people, gawking at me from across the store. Cover art is as good an excuse as any to sample an album, so I brought Doitnowman to a listening station and gave it a try.

I understand that some of you readers can get a bit hostile when you feel we're judging our albums by their covers. But this particular record leaves me at such a loss for musical comparison that I think the best analogy I can draw to its sound is a visual one: I feel the same way when I listen to this record as I do when I look at its artwork. (Now that wasn't so bad, was it?) Doitnowman is a sprawling alien tableau of flat and hollow sonic textures-- an ambitiously informed post-techno piece that references loads of electronic styles, but at times comes off sounding sour.

The record is the sophomore effort of Brighton-based producer Stuart Cullen, a relative unknown to the scene until 1999, when he debuted with a series of singles and the melancholy, detached Antenna LP. Though Antenna didn't meet with tremendous critical or commercial success, its distinct sound raised a few eyebrows. Music snobs always get a bit worried when we can't pigeonhole our records, and Pilote's peculiar knack for making music that hasn't been made before keeps him always one step ahead of categorization. Doitnowman has left reviewers even more nonplussed. Cullen experiments with more melody on his latest release, and actually tosses some lighter moods into the mix. But even while dabbling in a broader palette of sounds, his music sounds quite unlike anything else out there.

Unfortunately, uniqueness is probably this record's greatest strength. I won't mince words: Pilote tries harder than most in the business, but he sometimes fails. Some of the songs on this album plateau nicely; others drag on into masturbatory melodic incoherence. Two of the strongest starters, though-- "The Dialogue" and "Here/Gone"-- build up eerie, funky grooves, only to break into three-minute new-age synth solos. There's a reason these tracks haven't been made before, sir. I can marvel at how strange they sound, but I simply can't enjoy them.

Other tunes on this disc come closer to the mark. "Paul Oakenfold," the aptly titled opener, pays flippant homage to its namesake with a joking crack at epic trance. Around the halfway point, the chunky industrial beats give way to a tinny, distorted arpeggio. The moment recalls a classic Oakenfold breakdown, only recreated with Cullen's vacant, unsettling touch.

"Nelson" is a lushly textured, upbeat electro number that would have sounded at home on Boards of Canada's Twoism, or perhaps alongside their early contributions to the MASK compilations. "French Canadian," the album's standout, builds a beautiful downbeat joint around distant vocal samples, rich strings and a muted piano melody that sparkles above the song's otherwise gloomy soundscape. Pilote works some sort of trick with the volume envelopes on the piano notes here, rendering them flat against the contours of the song's darker layers. This track gives us a window into Cullen's potential, and gives me hope that he may some day find his form and issue a full album of this caliber. Until then, we're left with Doitnowman, an adventurous effort that, while never boring, ultimately leaves me a little limp.

-Malcolm Seymour III