Entropy

Album Review

Matt Slate, a former member of Pohgoh and the Maccabees, returns to action after a five-year break from music in the form of a one-man band he calls King of Spain on Entropy. The songs are taken at uniformly slow tempos, and they are played simply; often, Slate strums a single guitar string or a single chord over and over throughout the tune, adding other repetitive elements such as a synthesizer wash that may modulate now and then. He calmly speak-sings elliptical and idiosyncratic lyrics over these soundscapes. "I don't have to explain the process," he declares at the outset in "Mold Eats Paper," "it's inevitable." That's a sentiment consistent with the album title, as is the music itself. Entropy is an introspective album to the point of being a private musical exploration in which the listener may feel like an intruder.