Pan Sonic: A

There's "electronic music," and then there's "electronica," and while fans of the latter may not recognize the former as music when they hear it, electronic-music fans certainly know enough about electronica to dismiss much of it as crass hype exploitation. Electronica, cultural catch-phrase that it is, is more clearly aligned with the pop-music applications of synthesizers, samplers, and sine waves: namely, songs with hooks. Electronic music is more of a general label which denotes a less clear-cut mode of composition favored by not only avant-garde and musique concrete creators like Stockhausen and Xenakis, but also more visible techno artists like Aphex Twin and Autechre: namely, songs without hooks. That's not to imply that Pan Sonic, the Finnish duo of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen, doesn't make music that's pleasant to listen to. Rather, its third full-length record, A, is a "halfway" record: You have to meet it halfway to make sense of it. Unlike the work of most sample-reliant musicians, Pan Sonic's stuff doesn't sound the least bit like pop music. There are no soulful soundbites on A, and whatever beats pop up are clearly meant for something more than dancing. By reducing computers, analog synths, and noisemakers to their most primitive level, Vainio and Vaisanen don't just make music; they unmake it. "A-Kemia," for instance, sounds like a rhythmic accident, rescued from the happenstance hiss and buzz of everyday machinery operation by the diligent concentration and construction of Pan Sonic's collage technicians. By the time a melody threatens to appear, the song immediately halts and turns into "Johto 1," a haunting collection of static clicks, skipping sounds, and steam-room echo. The rest of A is no more or less accessible, though anyone still fascinated with Kraftwerk's emotionless man-machine ideal will surely find much to latch onto. Pan Sonic, though, has no time for hooks and emotion, so much is the duo intent on the impossible mission of capturing the future before it immediately becomes the past. Whoops, there it goes again.