1.4.20 by Ryan Masteller

“Salad Dog in Moon Shell” finds Map Collective going off the … er … map (am I allowed to do that?) on a conceptual adventure that makes as much sense as a Vonnegut sonnet run through fragmenting software and spliced together via MS Paint. Which means, of course, that “Salad Dog in Moon Shell” is essentially a vision quest laser focused on discovering the cockeyed realities beyond the fringes of the average and everyday. Its creators, scene dreamers Fletcher Pratt and Curt Brown (gotta love that Black Unicorn!), upend expectation by enforcing the acceptance of the unusual upon the unsuspecting.

I could’ve probably just said “dream logic” and been done with it. But where’s the fun in brevity?

The software and synth jockeys pepper your perceptions with rancid electronics disguised as dub and electro smears, but in reality these noxious concoctions fizzle and pop and blurt and dribble and pulse and ping, disregarding genre as much as convention. Still, the whole thing is incredibly listenable in a broken and malfunctioning half-speed techno sort of way, and if it’s easier for you to grab on to that kind of description, then be my guest. I’m not gonna tell anybody. The point is for you to let “Salad Dog in a Moon Shell” get its hooks in you, because once it does and once you align your mind to it, it’ll let you in on its inverted secrets, which, take it from me, are worth knowing.

Yeah, once “Salad Dog in a Moon Shell” has its hooks in you, it has them in you for good. And that’s OK.

Edition of 50 available from Rubber City Noise.