Can you see the album cover there on the left? A strictly defined rainbow arcs over an ultra-modern space station comprised of transparent spheres and tangled pipelines. The word "Logan" appears in that overused digi-tech font (see Isotope 217's Who Stole the I Walkman), and "Sanctuary" appears below it in connected letters. Near the bottom are outlined sketches of four faces, an identical pair of boys and girls. The artwork is also adorned with floating light blue, red and purple dots. Are you getting some idea as to what Logan's Sanctuary sounds like yet?

If the retro-futuristic cover art isn't telling enough, let's discuss Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Brian Reitzell. Manning was a founding member of the synth-happy cover band, Moog Cookbook. More recently, he's remixed songs for Air, Beck, and Jamiroquai, among others. Reitzell was a drummer for pop-punk's Redd Kross, and played music supervisor to Air's score to The Virgin Suicides. Is this becoming clear yet?

Like the album's cover, Logan's Sanctuary is doused in kitsch, blank white space, and airy atmospherics. Actually, maybe I should capitalize Airy, because, frankly, these guys are virtually imitating the esteemed French duo. Just listen to those analog synthesizers on the opener, "Islands in the Sky." Add a relentless hi-hat, a funky guitar, a jumpy bassline, and a ceaseless high- pitched whine to the mix, and you have Air covering cheesy '70s TV theme songs. With its ominous drumroll interludes, the track conjures scenes of jumpsuited enemy troops chasing rebellious residents through bubble-domed structures.

This isn't the only track with instrumentation that delivers futuristic images. The slow, bossanova-esque beat and fake harpsichord of "The Game" brings to mind people reclining in a Venus lounge bar. As you might guess, "Endless Tunnels" offers imagery of two people strolling through unfamiliar tubes, looking up, silently feeling the walls, and walking to the reverberated drumbeat, fake strings and thick keyboard. "Lara's Rainbow" is clearly what one would hear while approaching the sanctuary itself; lulling, fluctuating keyboards slowly build to a climax that, in the hands of Air, would be ethereal and natural. But Manning and Reitzell are a much less delicate pair than Godin and Dunckel, and as a result, the song is suffocating and wholly inorganic, as if it were lacquered and given a Windex shine.

There's a reason for the optical nature of this music. The album is actually intended as a soundtrack to Logan's Sanctuary, the sequel to Logan's Run, a 1976 apocalyptic sci-fi cult flick set in the 23rd century. The only problem is that Logan's Sanctuary doesn't exist. Manning and Reitzell have, like so many before them, created the film score to an imaginary movie. The album's liner notes detail the specifics of the sequel's plot, but they're far too convoluted to go into here. Suffice to say, it involves a drug called Raynbo which "intensifies the mind-numbing experience of Robo-Sex."

Too structured to qualify as a soundtrack, but too lax to feel like an album, Logan's Sanctuary only occasionally hits its mark. Perhaps Roger Manning and Brian Reitzell should have taken another idea from Air, and composed a soundtrack for a movie that actually exists.

-Ryan Kearney