Vitiello's contribution to Scanner's Meld Series is wrapped in dusty grooves and Tortoise-inspired melodies. Upon first listen, Scratchy Marimba sounds a worthy follow-up to Meld's superb first release, Scanner and DJ Spooky's The Quick and the Dead. Though Vitiello's contributed to movie soundtracks (for the indie scene, not for the Blockbuster-primed The Beach or MI:2 market), he's best known for his soundtracking works by Naim June Paik, and choreographer Li Chiao-Ping. It's these art-house tendencies that are Scratchy Marimba's undoing.

Vitiello's chosen to make a beat-enhanced marimba the initial focus of this album, rather than his usual detuned guitars and white noise hums. The scratchy marimba of the title makes its scratchiest and most accessible appearance during "Scratchy Marimba Meets the Low Pass Shrew," and like its cartoonish title, the track is playful and jaunty, resisting all po'-faced artspace posings. It's not exactly going to get big play at Pacha or the Café del Mar, but I can imagine DJ Food playing it out. "Loudmouth" dims the lights and the beats, making a melody out of what sounds like the thin, high-pitched squarks emitted by James T. Kirk's communicator when crewmen beeped him with reports on Klingon tomfoolery and much- merited alien babe updates.

Vitiello is abetted in his task by turntablist Hahn Rowe and drummer Dean Sharp, but only Sharp is immediately recognizable. It's as though Rowe's ones-and-twos are being used as Stockhausen noise elements. Kid Koala need not tremble! DJ Olive made a bigger splash when he guested with the ever-so-highbrow Uri Caine Ensemble in their refreshing demolition of Mahler. I hope Vitiello didn't bring Rowe along just for the turntable cachet.

After proving he can imbue installation-white walls with slapback funk, Vitiello backs himself into the art world and creates low-rumbling textures that, on the positive side, could gracefully appear on a Modulation and Transformation compilation. But on the less charitable end of things, Vitiello is clearly caving in to the supercilious demands of his arty mates and locking up the funk where he'll not be able to grab hold of it. It's a pity, really, because when Vitiello incorporates beats into his soundscapes, he successfully bridges the chasm between the art gallery and the street jam. Perhaps the sacrifice of a few downhome beats is the price one pays to record for Scanner.

-Paul Cooper