There are certain adjectives I'm required to use when discussing a band like Melochrome. So let's just get them out of the way right off the bat, okay? Let's see: warm, hazy, ambient, spacey, dreamy, textured, soothing. Kinda sounds like a Brian Eno production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but it sets up a pretty clear model of what Melochrome dishes out on This is Motion.

If you're an especially astute listener, you can probably already call the instruments in play: heavily reverbed guitar, warbling Rhodes electric piano, whisper-brushed drums, and occasional sound effects and rattles for atmosphere. Throw in a sense of pacing learned from Low and Sigur Rós records and a syrupy croon like Prekop's before he met Joe Camel, and you've got yourself the downright wooze-inducing Melochrome sound. The album title and the almost-title track "Music for Motion" might claim "we've got music made of motion," but I'm here to tell you-- it's a goddamn lie!

Of course, motion isn't typically the aim of this kind of music, so despite that ridiculous assertion, we're all good. In fact, This is Motion's forty minutes do exactly what the band surely intends it to do, that being to erect the sonic equivalent of green tea, a foot massage, and a hot face towel. The quartet might not shift out of quiet vamp gear for the album's entire duration, but that just makes all the pieces of flair that much more noticeable. Take the brass punctuation of "So We're Finally Moving On", for instance, or the subtly tape-tweaked cymbal bed on "Seaside Instrumental".

Like most bands of their ilk, Melochrome tends to dart back and forth across the line separating easy listening from E-Z listening. Opening their mouths usually doesn't help; "Catalina Girls" features a female lead vocal from the Sade school, and the hushed lullaby stylings used on "Out Late" may insure heavy rotation at the dentist's office. The horns are also never again utilized quite as well as they are on "So We're Finally Moving On", taking on a sort of unnecessary constant cascade throughout "Stereo City" and "Catalina Girls" that'll nag your thoughts for weeks as to what post-rock ditty it emulates. (I'll save you the trouble: it's Tortoise's "Swing from the Gutters".)

So I'd recommend This is Motion, but only for certain situations. Never listen to This is Motion before 2:30pm, except on Sundays; This is Motion is for sunsets, not sunrises. If you'd like to make out to This is Motion, wait until the fourth week of the relationship, unless your date is from Georgia, in which case you should probably wait until the fifth. All mixtapes containing tracks from This is Motion should contain only sepia-toned artwork. And be sure to use at least two of the above-mentioned required adjectives when endorsing it to friends.

-Rob Mitchum, October 17th, 2002