If you were to take a bunch of noises I hadn't heard before and jumble them around in interesting ways, I'd tune in. But if you were to take that same stew and add pop elements like repetition, melody or rhythm, then you'd really have something. Call it the Markus Popp(ins) principal: a spoonful of static helps the melody go down.

Or is the other way around? When I think about precisely how much sweetener I like in my abstract instrumental brew, I'm reminded of the words of that great sage Pete Townshend: "Just a little is enough." Pete was talking about love when he said that, of course, but it holds true when discussing music that flirts with structure. The tiniest pinch of prettiness can make a shapeless sonic morass congeal into something great. Belgium's Scratch Pet Land, a duo consisting of brothers Laurent and Nicolas Baudoux, seem to be on the same page here.

There's a crude painting of a snail on the cover of Solo Soli iiiii, and somehow, this seems the perfect metaphor for this record. Snails live much of their mysterious lives in damp, secret places that only occasionally intersect with humankind. They coast along on a slimy film that serves as their own primordial magic carpet, going from here to there, poking their absurd little horns around in search of a tasty bit of foliage. Solo Soli iiiii could serve as audio track of a documentary film about a similarly hidden society of small creatures as they converse, play, and yes, occasionally, sing.

These latter moments make some of the more amorphous passages of Solo Soli iiiii worth dissecting. I'm not being literal here; there's never any actual singing on this record. When there are vocals, they're clipped, wordless utterances. But there are songs. "Baudoux Baba" has a bouncy bassline, two distorted organ chords, some spazzy drumbeats mixed way in the background, and chiming analog electronics on top. If this really were a day in the life of the snail people, this track would be the sound of the gooey masses as they attend church. Though it seems constructed from abandoned music-making machines salvaged from the dump at the Island of Lost Toys, "Baudoux Baba" is a deeply spiritual and affecting track that contains more than a hint of gospel.

Despite how varied these tracks are in structure, there are themes with respect to sound sources. All the raw materials-- such as plucked ukuleles, Jew's harp, bits of guitar feedback, toy organs, Casios, and video game noises-- are decidedly gentle and delicate. It's a chaotic and unpredictable little world, but there's no real danger of violence.

While things never get nasty on Solo Soli iiiii, there do seem to be recurring feelings of confusion. Tracks like "Mika Hik Drum Kit (Version 3)" and "N No" both feature children's vocals that can manage no more than a single pathetic syllable. These tracks mine ground similar to Robert Ashley's "Automatic Writing" and just about all of Nuno Canavarro's Plux Quba. Gentle tones combine with anxious, garbled voices that seem to take comfort from the muted surroundings.

Every Sonig band has a legend behind their formation. This trend seems to stem from labelheads Mouse on Mars' mischievous sense of media manipulation. The story behind Scratch Pet Land is they played their first gig in a carpet store, the gig that gave them with their bandname. Apparently, they dragged microphones across rolls of carpeting and manipulated the resulting sounds. Whether it's true or not, this story nicely illustrates the irreverent sense of fun behind this interesting and abstract record.

-Mark Richard-San