More and more, as stress seems to be overwhelming me at every step, these reviews have taken on the role of organized release and relaxed writing. In turn, I'm sure I'm writing more of myself into these short pieces than ideally most readers would enjoy. As I've commented on numerous times, the seemingly endless barrage of music in the scenes that I attempt to follow numbs most of my sensibilities to new acts, particularly the ones that promote themselves in a digital manner. For the most part, I'm sure I'm correct in avoiding net labels and the like.

If the man behind The Archivist had not taken the time to burn an actual disc and send it into this site, I would have never listened to his music (ultimately a tragedy). Moving quickly through six songs in sixteen minutes, this bedroom pop-folkster presents a tour-de-force in neo-slacker majesty. Building from the most minimal hooks, organic and electronic elements blur together in a thoroughly postmodern pop sensibility. This isn't the codeine-soaked ragged decay of Animal Collective or anonymous made-for-Sub-Pop lap-pop?but something in between and drawing equally from those elements. Too bright and honest to fit in with the majority of the freak scene, but nods to those tendencies pop up in found sound samples and non-traditional song structures. An acute traditionalism (open, ranging Midwesternisms) permeates all of the textures, almost in equal parts with general restlessness. ?Street Night Om? plays as Radiohead's ?Pyramid Song? if recorded on a Casio in a dorm closet in the first take, while ?New Years? goes straight for the AM radio charm but fleshed out with gurgling synths.

Such a promising recording. Go download it and then tell him you love it. Whoever he is. 8/10 -- Brandon Miller (19 December, 2007)