by: Zero Sharp
Pulseprogramming is composed of people who have won prizes in poetry and who excel in graphic design and art. Why, then, does the cover of "Tulsa for a Second" look like every other mediocre experimental release that's come out in the last few years? It might have something to do with the fact that they seem to have recycled most of their ideas, too. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly acceptable chill-out glitch/idm (?). Most of their music ends up sounding a little like taking the Pet Shop Boys, adding some watered down Boards of Canada, and then stirring in some idm drum patterns. "Blooms Eventually" is a pretty good starter track, and it gives the listener a good idea whether they'll like the album or not. However, all of the cliches are here. The vocoder, the old synth sounds, the expected glitchy-ness, the whole gang. Later, the voices are just left as-is, but it doesn't help the sound break away into anything particularly new. From time to time, there are some beautifully sublime uses of strings, but they pass a little too quickly back to the expected. With the exception of "Within the Orderly Life", which makes the rest of the album pale in comparison(why didn't they do this for the whole album?), the album passes relatively unremarkably, leaving few memories of its presence. It's a good enough album, but perhaps not good enough to go searching to buy it. I'll have to say, though, I am a sucker for music boxes so the hidden track did leave me happy.
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