OUT OUT ASSUMED OUTRIVALING ALBUM RADIO VALKYRIE RELEASE: MAY 27, 2008 REVIEW: MAY 16, 2008

People often find an appreciation for the word "flux'" Out Out have defined it. Two years after the departure into unexplored territory via "Virtual Sound Images", this fellow has gone beyond any expectations or inklings. "Assumed Outrivaling", the result of all these efforts may bear the name Out Out on it but this leaves his last album in the dust.

Structural, noir-ish visceral electronic scenes from a lost future, from worlds on fire, drifting through time and space without hope of discovery. Mr. Miller had said this one would be different and how right he was, the fans who dropped off with his previous album are not likely to return but "Assumed Outrivaling" will garner him new enthusiasts, it is a magnificent testament to one man's commitment to both his craft and his ideals. Without the media machine pushing him, without a label shoving his work into everyone's inbox. This thing may just yet seal the deal which pushes Out Out into the realms of legend.

If you like it safe and regimented, forget even bothering with this album. The bandwidth contained herein is unlike what you're used to. This thing is going to do things to the minds of those who own it, I can tell you that right now. It's already happily noshing away on my grey matter even as I write these words. Panorama is not something Out Out have dabbled with much in the past but the scope of "Assumed Outrivaling" is vast. Almost empirically contusing are the tracks on this thing.

It may be a concept album, it may just be Miller tinkering with the time-space continuum, I doubt much will equate the same aural resonance this year, or any year. It is almost a physically incarnate cerebral shedding of skins going on here, so many guises and styles all concealed onto a single album. The variance is not of this time, or place. This is the sound of things to come, the first inkling of a larger existential incursion into undefined territory. Brave are the lot who can conjure such tones, textures and terror. Do carry on, we're right here with you and nothing is going to tear my ears away from what this man has undertaken.

PETER MARKS