I only see one photograph of Electric Company's Brad Laner in circulation, a black and white shot that looks like it was taken in a closet. In this photo, Laner's wearing sunglasses as he sits surrounded by equipment in the poorly lit room, looking like a serious fellow committed to his art who just might have a vitamin D deficiency. It's just a stupid press shot, but I can't help but think of it when I listen to 62-56. Both the photograph and this album seem to lack life.

A very wise man with 18-inch biceps once observed that you can't start a fire without a spark, and he just might have been imagining music like 62-56 as he gazed into the eyes of a teenaged Courtney Cox. Through its 45-minute length, this record smolders away in the CD tray, a few deep breaths and a bundle of kindling from ignition. I should note that this is by no means a bad record. Laner's skilled with his laptop software, and he knows how to wring a battery of interesting sounds from his synth modules. But only a small handful of tracks grab the listener in any real way. Mostly they just motor by like an elaborate float in a Mardi Gras parade, admired in passing but never remembered.

There are worthwhile moments. The first winner is "Hyperion." It's Electric Company's only stab at the pop song, a bit of DSP reggae cut with silly squeals and buzzes. As well as being the most rhythmically engaging track here by far, it's also the only one to show a sense of humor, something that works well in the context of heavily processed electronic music (ask an artist on Sonig).

I also have to give Electric Company credit for skillful editing, as the songs here flow one into another in a way that makes sense. Particularly striking is "Siamang" into "Test Card." The former features a particularly pretty four-note keyboard melody in the Aphex style, and as the track segues into "Test Card" an organic, dubby bassline is brought forward, accented with spare hits of feedback.

Those three tracks are front-loaded in the first half of the record, and the b-side is where this thing falters. "Simi Valley Radar" is interesting enough, evoking the electronic swamp vibe of Eno's On Land, but the final five tracks go nowhere, as Laner seems content to merely string one squiggly sound to another, giving little thought to composition or arrangement. The minute-long "New Hearing A" is crammed with a dozen variations on a Reaktor patch probably called "Crunchy," and "New Hearing B" cuts and pastes a few from one that might be called "Crackly" on top. 62-56 is not completely devoid of interest, but too much of it comes across as passable, generic IDM.

-Mark Richard-San, November 13th, 2001