Insomniak

It's 5:35 am. The air is crisp and cold, and the small puddles of water are still frozen by the brisk night air. The bus comes, picks you up, and you go to the very back. There's only 2 other passengers, none neer you. You put the earbuds into your ears, pull over the hood, and try to get some rest before catching the train, the only things keeping you awake being the coffee, the diesel motor, and the music

A growling bass, lower than anything a bass guitar with the strings tuned down can produce. Thin, noisy drum machine loops, with the powdery snares and hats you'll later recognize as a Roland TR-909. A synthetic, whispering, horse voice makes syllables that repeat an almost decipherable message. The words form in your mind: "got, gotta get away, get away". You hate the job and you hate the commute, but the music gives you some peace.

The second track floats the image of a cassette tape being rewound and played at the same time. It stops, and out of it come thumping, wooden bass, more thin percussion, and a new sound, a cross between a Hammond organ and the human voice. Fading in and out comes that rattling, synthisized bass, like Van Halen's "Jump", only a few octives lower and crisper, with a bit of an echo. The train's pulling up, you're out in the cold again.

A perfectly organized, crisp melody arranged on a computer, the images of football players robotically passing eachother the ball, moving their arms at square angles. Cartoony almost. That strange organ sound again, pulsing and decending like a sappy oboe in a 1920's big band. the conversations are realy picking up now on the train, fat busybodies on their way to work. Your eyes close as the hypnotic beats overcome you.

The bus rounds the corner, turning to the left, and left again. you were lucky to get a seet again. You're on the ninth track now, sparse and tinny, with the faintest percussion a simple melody, much like a piano, but softer, smothered in pillows.

And now it's a different day, with the second disc. You're almost at work, walking towards the sideways monolith of the building. There's a haunting song in your ears, something starting with "Vletmix" It's a 6:55 reality of 2001: A Space Odyssey. You're the chimp with the bone, you'll kill soon.

Stopping the discman to talk to the receptionist, it pops open, and you notice words you never saw before:

"Incomplete without surface noise"