id m theft able - I'm On Flourescence
Since I got this as one of my Christmas CDs years ago (probably one of the only people to ever recieve id m theft able CDs as a Christmas gift), this album's had its time to grow on me and while I didn't love it at first, I've definitely started to understand it as time goes on. Like the previous record (Water Quality), there's a lot of quiet, more EAI moments than I'm used to on id m theft able records, but I think with the way these odd digital bleeps and bloops and vocal samples are interlaced in between everything makes for a really engaging listen. This first 20 minute track is mostly fumbling in your ears, weird bleeps and bloops, and what sounds to be porn samples? But they're not very clear, it's just like once or twice you can hear "fucking pig", no moaning or anything, so it's not super explicit. Near the end, this starts to really ramp up as the bleeps start to get more tonal, more frequent, and more video-gamey, and then you start to get the classic id m theft able Stims like him repeating "test, test, my headphones, my headphones are dead" over and over again. And it starts to build up this incredible intensity along with these absurd stims. But that's how pretty much all of these tracks go. Unlike other id m albums, this one sorta lacks variety, but that in a way makes it easier to grasp what's going on? Each track is relatively quiet and empty compared to other id m tracks, but that's still with a massive asterisk on it because there's definitely loud and unrestricted moments. And most of the record is like random ASMR fumbling in the ears, but there's still crazy harsh digital sounds everywhere too. As well as repetitive stimmy samples in and out of every which direction. There's an amazing part of track 4 that I never realized was id m theft able's normal mouth noises, but actually CD skipped this time. And actual Oval style CD skipping at the end of track 6! And like many other id m theft able albums, the last track is a near-perfect combination of sounds that on paper shouldn't work together, but sound absolutely fantastic when presented in this context together: layers of toy pianos, melancholy singing from Skot, the bleeps from earlier are much louder and a have a lot more different sounds to them, light CD skipping. Definitely the loudest track on the album and even though all of these sounds definitely just loop, it's still wildly interesting to hear them all and how they interweave with each other. Also, "put on your coat, we're leaving" ended up being one of a few phrases me and a friend would say to each other in jazz band when bored, because I randomly said it to him one day and it stuck (there's a few titles that ended up like that that I can't totally remember off the top of my head). I don't often return to this album because of how esoteric it can be at times, but there's some real skill displayed here and it's definitely worth a listen once you're more seasoned with this incredibly unique style of music. Maybe listen to some of his best works first though.

8/10