Some things never get old. I could eat a cream cheese bagel every morning for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. Unfortunately, the musical equivalent of a cream cheese bagel is hard to find. Most artists, albums or genres, if I hear too much over a certain period, eventually start to wear. Often this happens gradually over a long stretch of time, so gradually that I can't pinpoint when my affection started to change. Other times my dissatisfaction comes over me in a wave and I have a moment of clarity.

I believe Akufen's My Way marks the precise moment I started to get a little bored of this strand of microhouse. It's not really fair to Akufen that it happened to catch me at this time, because as records in this genre go, this is a good one. The beats are crisp and funky, a good many of the melodies are memorable, and the concept is interesting enough. A quick note on the latter-- Akufen (Mark Leclair of Montreal) uses a technique he calls "microsampling" to gather raw materials for his tracks. This method involves recording tiny fragments of radio transmissions and recontextualizing the sounds into his pumping, stripped down house rhythms. Favorite Akufen snippets are brief acoustic guitar riffs, one-syllable vocalizations, and quick string stabs. It's a distinctive sonic signature that gives his tracks load of possibility.

And it sounds good, really it does. Yet, the half dozen times I listened to this album, my primary thought was, Do I need another record that sounds like this? Even though Akufen meticulously builds complex riffs into these tracks from dozens of stray sound fragments, and even though he layers these sounds above propulsive and endlessly danceable beats, My Way doesn't really stand out for me. In truth, when the thick clusters of sampled sound get past a certain density, I just find them annoying.

My favorite track on My Way is the most focused, the overtly pretty "Skidoos." It takes its time building up from an opening of dubby percussion and processed samples, but after a vaporous synth drone folds in, the 4/4 beat and grabby bassline identify the tune as an energizing dance track. Key to its appeal is the ping-ponging vocal riff that appears and reappears, a killer hook that makes the track seem close to a 'song' in the traditional sense of the word, even though the singing is clipped and wordless. Beats this danceable deserve a little bit of pop, and "Skidoos" does not disappoint. If I ever make it inside a club again, I hope to hear something as blissed out as this.

After that peak, the rest of My Way is fine and reliable but never great. "Heaven Can Wait" has some R&B; vocal samples with similar emotional power, although the cluttered arrangement diminishes the return. "Deck the House" takes the prize in terms of technical expertise, with chords, rhythms, melodies and counter-melodies all generated from tiny dust particles of sound that fly past so quickly your brain barely has time to make out the pattern. After that, there's a whole lot of 'this sounds interesting' and very little engagement. The truth is, I'm not sure how much new glitchy house I need in my collection at the moment. I still find Farben and Herbert stunning, and MRI's All That Glitters remains great fun. But I do know that when I next reach for something in this vein, Akufen will fall pretty far down my list.

-Mark Richard-San, July 30th, 2002