A side project featuring members of Cologne, Germany"s Mouse on Mars, and Rome, Oval is a distinctive recipe of CD-scratched rhythms, obfuscated sample collages, and endless, cyclical structures. Suggesting vintage musique concréte, the French IRCAM collective, Krautrock progenitors like Neu and Kraftwerk, and what you imagine your computer might do if left to its own devices, Systemisch is both amazingly boring and incredibly fascinating; the aural equivalent to a Chuck Close tableau or the architectural sculptures of minimalist Sol LeWitt. Utterly impersonal, devoid of musical gesture, and downright John Cage-ian in its unspoken declaration of nonauthorship, it"s the kind of music that plays with your programming; where are we, what and who is this, and, darnit, why? --James Rotondi