or better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

Trente Oiseaux's music, and the music of its founder and head, Bernhard Günter, in particular, should be listened to at full volume. This is minimalism at its most minimal, usually consisting of a few vague sounds plucked and thumped and hissing around at ultra-low volumes. If you set your stereo to its regular volume, you're likely to hear nothing at all, save a few, errant clicks once in a while. You can listen to this music in this way and appreciate it in a sort of John Cage "4'33" sort of way, but that can get a bit tiring. No, it's best to crank up the volume, plug in your earphones, and be immersed in these sounds.

Although this release is billed as a collaboration between Günter and the American composer, Steve Roden, it really isn't. The first track, "Particles/Waves (For Steve Roden)" is Günter, and the other two tracks—"Every Color Moving" and "Eden (for T. Maloney)" are Roden. All three tracks are minimal, so you need to turn up the volume for full effect, but this is truer of Günter's track than for Roden's. Ironically, it is Günter's work, more than Roden's, which makes this disk worth checking out.

"Particles/Waves (For Steve Roden)" is a creepy song. It's almost entirely made up of static noise, the kinds of sounds you hear when you plug and unplug an electric guitar from a hot cable. For the first few minutes, this static just bubbles around and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. But right around the halfway point, this song jumps into gear. A rhythm forms out of the static, like a looping echo of a disturbing feedback loop; this rhythm floats around in the background while, in the foreground, static bubbles burst out of the muteness and explode in your ears. If you're using headphones and have your stereo at full blast, it'll sound like a rocket blast—at least, for a few seconds, before the noise bubbles back down. This is a fascinating work, one of the best things I've ever heard from Günter or Trente Oiseaux.

Roden's "Every Color Moving," on the other hand, is dull. It consists of a Japanese koto solo immersed in some hazy noise that floats in and around the string instrument. It starts off very nice, but then it just keeps going for about 13 minutes. The track establishes a very interesting mood, but I've heard songs like this before that have employed Japanese traditional instruments to more interesting effect. "Eden" is a little better. It's more (much more) minimal in its instrumentation. It consists, largely, of a series of oscillating synth wails—the kinds of wails you often hear on science fiction soundtracks. Again, this track is all about mood, and the mood I perceive here is one of ominous anticipation, followed by terror, as the wails turn into a churning mass of noise. It's an intriguing piece, far more interesting than Roden's first track, and far better suited to Günter's work.

In all, this is a pretty good release from two very distinguished members of the minimal school of electronic music. I'd only really recommend two-thirds of this release, but, if you are a fan of Günter's other work, you should really own "Particles/Waves."