Secret Mommy – “Plays ” – [Ache Records]

Totally freaking brilliant. If you believe that manipulation and editing are musical instruments, then Secret Mommy is for you. Andy Dixon (aka SM) is one twisted genius. First, he had some friends lay down tracks of acoustic-only instruments such as violin, cello, piano, bass, sax, mandolin, guitar, trumpet, vocals, percussion, styrofoam, foil, alligator clips; you know, the usual. Dixon played a few things too. Then he cut the tracks up into pieces, rearranged them, digital-processed the hell out of them, cut them up again, reassembled them, and processed them again. (The above is speculation on my part, but it can???t be far off.) Then he got big, wet, slurpy beats from somewhere and drove the tracks with those. The result is this weird, catchy, beautiful record. Devotees of glitchery and electronica should check this out. Acoustic chamber-music fans too. Possibly even jazzers and forward-thinking folkies. Do we give out stars? If so, this gets five of them.