Les Brown - The Next One (Self-Released)

Experimental art rock musician Les Brown has just put out his sophomore full-length late last month, and as his debut album was called The First One, it’s only proper that this release is called The Next One. Drawing from the prog rock of King Crimson, the ambience of Brian Eno, and the early electronica of Tangerine Dream, it’s an understatement to say this is a challenging collection of songs. While some tracks do descend into chaos and others seem more like conceptual performance pieces, there’s also a deceptive pop sensibility that creeps in to tie together all of the different threads.

Although there are undoubtedly intimidating moments like the seemingly ordered randomness of “One More Thing,” the album also expands and opens up to explore a number of different genres all skewed through Brown’s one-of-a-kind vision. There’s the Depeche Mode new wave of “Picycle,” the noir jazz of “Martini” and the light new age “Daisy in the Wind,” but nothing ever comfortably sits in one genre. In fact, the entire album is brilliantly unstable, as if everything could collapse in on itself at any moment. The Next One will appeal to almost any fan of the weird, left-of-center, and avant-garde, yet there is also enough melodicism here to provide a gateway for those who desire to enter the world of experimental music but don’t know where to begin.