A Million Billion

Today We Love You (2005)

Jesse Raub

So this is this dude named Ryan Smith. This shit is fucked. Like, crazy lo-fi electro-beat machine with weird shit all over the place fucked. It's pretty rad, or actually, would be pretty rad without the vocals. The vocals just get in the way of the beeps and boops. But that's okay, because not all songs have vocals. As far as how it sounds, expect lots of bell-type electronics and static noises. And glitchy sounding beeps and boops. And `80s-styled synth bass drums. Combine that with a simple melody, bombastic backgrounds, and sometimes distorted vocals. Ta-da, you've got a decent electronica group with a shitty name.

Seriously, this name reminds me of like some crappy all-girl indie pop group. "Tee-hee, we call ourselves A Million Billion because, like, that's how much we love you! Hearts and teddy bears! High school dances!" But shit, it ain't my job to make fun of this guy's band name.

Or is it? I forget what my job is here…so anyway, this thing is mostly a glitchy audio collage. Think Prefuse 73 without the hot beats that sometimes reminisces about old Múm albums. "End of April" is almost unlistenable due to its shrieky nature. "Sunday With Pam" is a slow, vocally little track. "O" sounds like the intro to "Andy Warhol" from Bowie's Hunky Dory. And the pattern basically repeats itself.

Musically, it's interesting. It's really pushing boundaries that were set by the aforementioned groups. But it's not too listenable. I coudln't see myself really getting into this and listening through the album while sitting around, or walking to class, or anytime. That doesn't mean you won't like it, but I mean, I've got some way the fuck out there musical tastes, and if something's even a bit too weird for me, it may be way the fuck too weird for you. Maybe I've been listening to too much pop music lately.