've always enjoyed ISAN, the English duo of Robin Saville or Antony Ryan, whose soft, happy beats and "single digit melodies" have helped make Morr Music one of the most consistently entertaining electronic labels around. They're like a happy version of Pan Sonic. Where Pan Sonic uses minimalist noise to create esoteric (though generally loud) soundscapes, ISAN uses minimalist noise to create music that wouldn't be out of place on Saturday morning television: warm, soft, lilting and pleasant. Imagine Brian Eno's Another Green World without vocals and with more electronic noise, and you'll understand ISAN.

All of this pleasantness applies to ISAN's entire oeuvre, from their debut Beautronics to their 2004 release, Meet Next Life. However, as the years have passed, I've been less and less enamored of their music. It's still warm, pleasant, and all that, but it's also less interesting. For me, the best ISAN album was 1999's Salamander, for it was a collection of songs that weren't afraid to be utterly, unashamedly simplistic. These were songs composed almost entirely of a few beeps, a few bloops and a few whistles. I still enjoy listening to this album. Since then, ISAN has attempted to expand their core sound to include more intricate layering of rhythms and melodies on top of those small sounds. The results have been mixed. 2001's Lucky Cat shared many of Salamander's traits, but it also added a deeper complexity. At times, the complexity was welcomed, and my review of the album at the time was unashamedly positive. However, I rarely listen to Cat anymore, largely because it sounds a bit too much like a lot of other complex, esoteric, digital creations that have come out in last few years. By expanding their sound, by making their music more complex and more elaborate, ISAN lost the very thing that made them special: their simplicity.

And so I find myself listening to ISAN's new album, Meet Next Life. All their core sounds are here—wispy synthesizer melodies and bleeps and blips. But there's an added element that was not evident in the earlier music: live instrumentation. The addition of live percussion, guitar, bass, and glockenspiel into their music is the result of ISAN's first forays into live performance (their first gig being the 2002 Sonar Festival in Barcelona). It gives their work an added girth, expanding their sounds beyond the tiny world of binary notes. But is that a good thing?

I guess that depends upon your perspective. For ISAN, it's no doubt a good thing. I can't imagine anything more boring than recycling the same sound over and over again. They HAVE to grow, to progress, and to develop as musicians; that's the whole point of being a musician. So, if I were Mr. Saville or Mr. Ryan, I'd be more than thrilled by this addition of live instruments to give my music a kick. I'd be thrilled that I could throw some live percussion sounds (that sound like some weird Amazon rainforest where bugs are ten feet tall and their voices whistle in the wind) into a track like "First Date—Jumble Sale", and have those sounds mix with the warbling wails and tiny beats that ISAN is known for. What a rush it must have been to suddenly realize that the music they once created was only the stepping-stone to a whole universe of new and different sounds.

So, from ISAN's perspective, Meet Next Life has got to be a giant step forward. But I'm not ISAN; I'm a listener, and what I hear is a group that is trying to experiment with new and different sounds yet unable to make that full break, to let go of their earlier music and fully embrace both a new sound and a new musical landscape. There is, in short, too much ISAN in this ISAN album. Why keep throwing out the blips and whirls of earlier efforts when those bug sounds and throbbing bass sounds are more interesting? Why not take that next step and just relinquish the past altogether and embrace something entirely new? The bug sounds and the bass sounds and all these other new sounds are fresh, exciting, and fun; the blips and whirls are stale and tired.

These are two very talented musicians, so I'm sure we'll hear from them in the future. I just hope the next album has more bugs and less bleeps.