ho would have ever thought one of the more promising names in American electronic music would hail from Birmingham, Alabama? Then again, in the Internet age, where access to information (and access to the ability to disseminate information) is just a mouse click away, why not? Why does every respectable artist have to come from metropolitan centers like New York or Los Angeles or even hip college centers like Minneapolis, Athens or Austin? Why not Birmingham, Alabama?

But I digress. Ipsissima Vox is Accelera Deck's (aka Chris Jeely's) first full-length release since 2001's Shadow Land. I've not heard that record, but I did hear and review his recent Lulluxa EP, which I really enjoyed. In fact, I concluded with this line: "it gets me excited for Jeely's next full length." Well, Ipsissima Vox IS the next full-length release. Was the excitement warranted?

Well, it's a weird album—that's for sure. The liner notes mention that the songs were "recorded variously on cassette, 4-track, and computer from summer 1993 to spring 2003." They also note that the instruments used were "guitar, feedback, loops and treatment." I'm guessing the word "treatment" is probably an understatement. What we have here is a variation on a common theme in electronic music: the transformation of guitar-based sounds into electronic experimentation. Yes, guitar sounds are in evidence throughout, but usually only as a prelude to a weirder, Fennesz-like exploration of the nature of noise and repetition.

The fact that the music was recorded over a ten-year span would suggest that the music here might be a bricolage: a combination of many styles and effects. Actually, I'm guessing that, while the sounds were recorded over a long span, their actual recreation into the songs on this album took place over a considerably shorter period. The music here is pretty consistent in tone and execution. There's a lot of noise and silence, a lot of squeaks and squeals, and a lot of rumbles and warbles. Plus, there's not a lot of what is usually called "rhythm" or "melody" here, save when guitar melodies creep in and around the noise. Beyond those instances, it's mostly just a lot of free-floating weirdness.

Now, my calling this music "free-floating weirdness" should not be taken as an indication that this music is without structure—far from it. In fact, unlike some electronic experiments, these fifteen songs are actually songs—with beginnings, middles, and ends. So you'll get a song like the title track, which starts out as a series of crumbly noises, then progresses to more intense radio static-like effects before it concludes with about three minutes of ear-piercing noise. Slowly building sounds that bust into noise: that's structure, isn't it? There are other, less dissonant examples, like "Reckoning," which begins with some nice guitar melodies that are, slowly but surely, overwhelmed by blips and other noises (though the guitar remains in the background throughout). Then there's a song like "Hail," which follows the title track's rather evil noise with some Richard Chartier-like minimal blip-ism. In short, while the sounds used to create this music are rather unified (though varying in intensity), the individual songs are as distinct from one another as you're likely to find on an electronic work.

So, let me return to my initial question: was this album worth the wait? I would say yes. Although it's not the greatest work of experimental electronics this year, and although I'm usually not a fan of "bleeding ear" noise music, I do find this work original and inventive, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone into the more experimental side of electronic music.