While some musicians aim to package their craft as tight, concise statements, others go the less travelled and infinitely more difficult route of cramming a million, often conflicting ideas into one sprawling piece of work. Konx-om-Pax (a.k.a. Scotland’s Tom Scholefield) takes the latter approach. Following visual collaborations with the likes of Mogwai, Jamie Lidell and Hudson Mohawke, Scholefield has offered up his debut as Konx-om-Pax, Regional Surrealism. It’s a head-scratchingly complex and ambitious piece of work that never stays in one place for long. The album explores many an electronic territory, doling out everything from dark, Aphex Twin-esque drones (“Isotonic Pool”), to Popol Vuh-tinted spirituals (“Glacier Mountain Descent”), to Oneohtrix Point Never-like synth jams (“Silent Reading”), to spooked-out score-like pieces straight from some deep-space horror (“Hurt Face”). Throw in a cameo from Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite on blippy “Zang-Tumb,” and you have one seriously scatterbrained piece of work, though not an uninspired one. Regional Surrealism demands some effort on the part of the listener, but it ultimately pays off, with the album refusing to dumb things down as it elicits myriad emotional responses. Plus, where’s the adventure in taking the easy road?
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