Until this release, the only explicit collaborations presented on the RI label were Datacide and Masters of Psychedelic Ambience, both of which involved Tetsu Inoue. Add to those "H.A.T." which might thought of as a kind of Datacide spinoff plus a guest musician. From HAT up to Fonosandwich, all the releases are either by previously established collaboration projects (Datacide & +N), or authored by friends (Dandy Jack & the Plastic Woman, & Lisa Carbon), or alternate musical personalities (such as Senor Coconut & MC Heart).

For this release, Uwe Schmidt and Inoue finally get themselves into the studio with Haruomi Hosono, who they themselves revered and respected as one of the most intriguing Electronic composers whose career spans several decades. Around the time of HAT's release "Harry" was opening up his own new label Daisyworld, which would soon reissue this first HAT album to Japanese audiences featuring new cover art with crop circle designs depicting the classy HAT logo (it'd make a great hood ornament wouldn't it?!) This whole album is awash with "Highly Active Textures," digital tone sheets and galvanized wave blips that often zip by rapidly before camouflaging themselves back into the song. Along with whirling keyboards, futurefunky rhythms, and Mactalk backtalk, the excessively abstract is once again somehow made both humorous and appreciable.

1. Funk Coaster - Off kilter soundbits coming from all directions and blended, syncopated hard disk debris. After 2'25" of this intro madness filled with binary spittoons, which all taken together in realtime induces a sort of mildly-disorienting and giddy satisfaction, we get a statement from Albert, the mactalk voice: "I am the funk master...!" Now the drum sequences change up gears and deliver a hard driving rhythm. Forceful, quirky, and with considerable variation. These drum patterns are the sturdy backbone for sporadic assault of DSP miscellany (this is the funk). Near the end, a finale interlaces the predominant rhythms with those from the intro: two independent rhythms work as one.

2. Organic Mango - This second track is a solid follow up to the great funk coaster, off we go! Showing up again on RI2, this one is a fine downtempo wallop after the opening rampage. Whining filter whistles creep out between these comparably gentle beats. Slide whistle weirdness and I really would have no idea what one would call this kind of music. Hyperexotic solo passages remind me of 70's freestyle nostalgia rock translating through time via analog synthesis. Great melodies here!

3. Sleep Run - You'll roll with this one. The bass drum starts us off for a few rounds, setting a moderate rhythm. Piano chords are introduced, and the track is turned into a loungy chaser. Funky synth twangs are inserted into the sequence and the song is wasting no time filling out. At 4'20" we got some ivory ticklin' solo activity, which promptly does a 180" spin and plays in reverse at some fill-point. How is it that they can slip in interleaved pianobar riffs with all these other hi-tech elements and still keep it appetizing??

4. 2 Gigabyte of Joujou - The experhythmental 2-minute intro pulls the landing gear up, then the multiple timesig'd beats begin to flow, what count is it? Everything seems whacked out of control, yet somehow still groovable. Harddrive garbage dumped all over the place, turning it instrumental. I was thinking that this was the 1st track without piano instrumentation, but the 2nd half of the track is all layered up with more multiple mellokeys. What was I thinking?

5. Kubrick - At the time he was alive. Shut your wide eyes and sit back to enjoy the detail in this one. Trunc'd bits of synth suspended in a circulating dub matrix. The chunks sometime remind me of the FX for Artificial Countryside (MU), but there's a thump-tech tactic at work that propels it. A good one, particularly at moderately high volume.

6. Quick ESC. - The finisher is the longest track on the album. A gradual fade-in of a field recording with a woman singing in the background that approximates blurred Japanese Karaoki scenes melding into each other. The crystalline pulsating synth static sputters tones make their way in and then the superclap! (TM) Next, a wobbling projection spills holographic pixels that play the part of the melody. The overall design reminds of me of something approximating "Rather Sleep Than Dance" from MU, although the two tracks are quit different. A very memorable combination of sounds here.