Part of this success owes to the witty track titles which, as standalone thoughts, offer listeners something to carry with them into the listening experience.”No Matter How Fast you Run Today, you will Never Catch up to Tomorrow” is a perfect example of this interplay at work. The track opens with a solitary drum riff (plus a touch of cowbell) that brings to mind the sounds of industrial machinery; this recurring sound-image underscores the rest of the track as if to suggest the relentlessness of progress, perpetually in motion but not always moving forward. Coupled with the driving yet rounded rhythms of the marimba, the repetitive tones of the vibraphone, and the glimmers of glockenspiel, “Now Matter How Fast” leaves one feeling out of breath from exhilaration rather than exhaustion.
“A Brief Story Without An Ending” follows in a similar vein with recurring melodic patterns carried out by the marimba and vibraphone. The crash features more prominently in the drum set’s toolkit this time, allowing ensemble, et al.’s rock sensibility to shine through, but it never overpowers the lighter instrumentation on top. In this sense, “A Brief Story” is as much a listening exercise for the musicians involved – paying special attention to how the sounds of their instruments interact, relate to, and play off one another – as it is genre-blurring etude for the listener.
“An Afterword of an Image” is by far the most delicate piece in present point passed, at times reminiscent of a modified down-tempo version of Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians”. The shifting, pulsating layers are hypnotic to the ears, drawing the listener deeper into a state of contemplation, and deeper into the musical subconscious with the addition of vocal harmonies near the end. As such, “An Afterword” is exactly as the title suggests: it is the sound of a thought tracing an idea.