In the early days of EvilSponge, i listened to a lot of electronic music. I am a huge fan of the spacey wanderings of The Orb, and loved their dub with weird samples sound.

But it seemed The Orb eventually lost the plot, and spacey ambient music became less common. Drum and bass, then grime, then dubstep, then ... "whatever they want to call it this month" all seemed to take over. Electronic music became harsher, and that is saying something coming from someone who listens to Autechre and also a lot of doom metal...

I just haven't felt that excited by electronic music in years. Oh sure, there was the dub of Loscil, like The Orb's ambient excursions stripped of the whimsy but keen for deep wandering listening. But it's been a while since something really grabbed my fancy.

But 4n_Objx (pronounce it "foreign objects") by Gryphon Rue hits me like late 1990s ambient techno. It's all deep bass, strange beats, random sounds, and even quirky samples (the song World's Fastest Talking Man is based around mangled samples of an auctioneer...). The music is sample heavy, echoed to hell and back, chaotic, and whimsical, which to be honest makes this record a fun listen.

There are ten songs in just under forty minutes here, but let me go over a few moments that I really like.

Rake's Progress is the most aggressively Orb-like tune here. The rhythm is a sort of meandering beat, and over this bass wavers and sounds come in and out. I can see the head-bopping rhythm owing a debt to Dr. Patterson. The sauntering track Shibboleth is made up of odd noises, including some kind of whooshing sound. All of the noises work together to make a beat, and again I reminded of The Orb.

On the other, Alluvials reminds me of Astralwerks' Excursions in Ambience series. It's tinkling keyboardy stuff with odd layers floating in and out. It's spacey fun.

In general this album is fun. Gryphon Rue has some very interesting ideas, and I like the execution. Fans of mellower electronica will want to check this out.