Issued in time for the electro pop explosion currently threatening to implode under the weight of its own hype, Arpanet's 'Wireless Internet' slots directly into electronic music's concept album lineage.
Like Kratwerk, Clinton and Bambaataa before them, the reclusive crew behind Arpanet have wrapped their music in a vision of the future.
This time around we are projected into a world where Japanese telecommunication company, NTT DoCoMo, has plugged everyone into the wireless internet of the I-Mode cellular phone system.
In the real world Japan already has nearly 30 million people linked permanently on-line through their mobile phones, while Europe is the second world leader in telecommunications and the US is working frantically to catch up
From this the Arpanet extrapolate a future where everyone directs their lives through remote control wireless handsets.
Typically, the identity behind Arpanet has been kept secret, with official statements claiming the producer(s) exists solely as an electronic entity on the Internet
What we do know is that it's being released through Air's Record Makers imprint and was recorded at Dataphysix HQ, made famous by the influential electro crew Dopplereffekt. The artwork's simplicity is also reminiscent of Dopplereffekt.
The album begins with a Stephen Hawkin computer voice introducing the album's theme, for a peculiarly long period, before opening up the airwaves to a stripped back electro sound track.
Although undoubtedly Detroit influenced, like much of the current scene much of this predominantly harkens back to European Kraftwerk roots rather than electro in its strict US Juan Atkins or Arthur Baker incarnations.
Tracks such as 'Illuminated Displays' are distinctly early Eighties electro-pop, married to space-movie score refrains and sound effect bleeps, used to sonically describe the required imagery.
On other tracks, such as 'Wireframe Images', and 'P201V' we get a sense of the boundary pushing frustration of the Detroit, or even Sheffield based, early pioneers, as the beats thud and crack out different permutations of the same groove or refrain.
The album has a wholly unpolished finish, with seemingly meandering sequence loops being allowed to coil around themselves for minutes before moving into the next track. Whole tracks are also repeated with minor twists and new names ('Wireframe Images' with computerised vocals becomes 'NTT DoCoMo') while 'Software Version' is a roughly hewn pylon-sound drum box-only track.
Out of this confusion rises the first proper vocal (and most Kraftwerk sounding) track, 'Devoid Of Wires'. With its identity based message, apart from 'Wireless Internet' itself, this is most likely to be the track that makes it from the album and into our more general conscience, although, like all the tracks here, it's barely dance floor friendly.
Finally the title track ripples with Aztec Mystic wood block sounds and, driven by a distinctly rock bass arrangement, embarks on a never-ending, slow crescendo.
But the final question you're left with is a powerful techno teaser. Namely is Arpanet a critique of I-mode or another smart piece of marketing?
