Oh, the boundless possibilities of marrying outer space themes to electronic music! The sounds of orotund synthesizers, reverberating endlessly to frame after frame of NASA stock footage. Muscular men donning their extravehicular spacesuits, spinning, floating, training, all to the ominous coalescence of warm, human melody and cold, amoral machine, simultaneously comforting the listener and foreshadowing the impending havoc built into its very design!
This completely prosaic theme is now so thoroughly exhausted it can hardly be seen as anything but parody. For whatever reason, this hasn't stopped Casino Versus Japan from exploring the possibilities one more time. Without frills, surprises, or even any particularly enjoyable music, Whole Numbers Play the Basics barely has the capacity to exemplify the exhausted notion of "futuristic pop music" it posits.
By the time you reach "Summer Clip", there's no doubt Eric Kowalski (aka Casino Versus Japan) is trying to unload the exact same song for the sixth time. What's striking-- more than the severely lacking theme-- is the monochromatic way Kowalski approaches his work. Modal Casio passages, heavy echo effects, and distorted, ham-fisted beats carry out a drudging procession of thoughtless electronic wank. The album grinds away at your patience with its insular and self-perpetuating pseudo-nostalgia, all artless calisthenics.
So, obviously, lack of thematic originality and simple narrow-mindedness factor in, but I'd be doing the listener a great disservice to ignore the possibility that Casino Versus Japan is also blatantly plagiaristic. Take a listen to the much-revered Tomita's body of work, or compare Casino Versus Japan's "Koma Sign-Off" with the second track from Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works II, and you'll start to get the picture. It's baffling how far one can stretch such derivative notions. But what's more baffling is the fact that many people will hear this albums and enjoy it.
Whole Numbers Play the Basics makes sense as background music on your college radio station, as filler for a mixtape, as the soundtrack to your iMovie; it's genrified wallpaper, as instantly recognizable as surf-rock or Sinatra, and an obvious calling card for any advertising exec seeking low-budget electronica with which to sucker his target market.
