Humor and playfulness are usually in short supply in abstract electronic music. Small-label releases from this world are dominated by techno-fetishists (derived from Autechre, fond of track names like "Fuut98[c-1]") and back-to-the-womb pastoralists (from whom you might find a song called "Glazed Tricycle"). There's not enough irony, laughter, and just plain goofiness. San Francisco's Sagan-- a project combining the sound talents of J. Lesser, Blevin Blechtom, and Wobbly with the visuals of director Ryan Junell-- seems intent on correcting this balance.
A deep-70s rusty-hued painting on the inside of the double digipack (audio CD + DVD containing short films and six hours of live shows) sets the tone with Carl Sagan's warm and knowing grin. Popular science and the cosmos are undercurrents throughout Unseen Forces, serving as a conceptual launching pad for a project designed as a unified whole. Track titles like "18,000 B.C. - Figurines of Vulva and Waterbird" and "Rosetta Stoned" hint at Sagan's fondness for the ridiculous, and the music holds up its thematic end by subliminally referencing early ancient planetarium kitsch and possible musics from beyond the stars.
The opening "Theme from Unseen Forces" is a retro zero-gravity fanfare with an almost painfully affecting melody-- the sort of thing you could see playing when Leon Theremin ascended into heaven. From there, however, Unseen Forces takes a decidedly abstract turn. As sometimes happens with Blechtom-related projects, Sagan seems intent on creating an entirely new music vocabulary on each track. Most of Unseen Forces is admirably non-referential, layering various muffled drums and alien synths with various squeaks, static washes and machine groans.
Though the music is certainly original, much of Unseen Forces is harsh and unpleasant-- loaded down with frequencies designed to cause headaches. Tracks like "JabPunPlus (OnePlusTwo)" and "Fixed Eyes (Slight Return)" often sound like high-pitched spinning machines thrown off their axis, cycling through patterns that seem to be slipping a gear. The awkwardness and imbalance seems essential to what Sagan is trying to do, but that doesn't make a headphone listen any more pleasurable. More engaging are "Rosetta Stoned"-- which has a nicely propulsive parallel-universe electro vibe-- and "Closest Living Relations". Something of a Krautrock tribute, "Closest"'s nimble and spacious bass and drum grooves occasionally gives way to powerful mega-distortion riffing.
Sagan would prefer to see itself as a multimedia project, and the DVD is ultimately more of an attraction. Absurd short films by Ryan Junell reenact great moments in science with a cast that includes the guys from Matmos and members of Sagan. The acting may be student-film caliber, but the direction is strong, and the DVD's Viewmaster navigation interface has a few of entertaining Easter eggs tucked in corners. In the end it seems that Sagan's music sounds better with something to look at.
