After a five year silence, Matthew Arnold returns and thrusts it right in our $%@#ing faces. The last time I marveled at Arnold was with his 2004 album Sinking. After Merck shut down, I mourned the loss of artists left stranded amidst the disintegrating landscape of dying labels. Now, out of nowhere, Arnold drops another bomb for us. The album plays like a trip through a slinky, wobbling down the psychedelic stairs. Using some familiar sounds from Sinking, Arnold teases us with a few intelligent progressions and then slams a dark electro beat, full of 303-esque acid bass and dazzling arpeggios. Experts will pick up on the analog sounds of Nord Modular and the unmistakable flavor of x0xb0x. The percussion is solid, tight, and very satisfying, ranging from electro patterns to the unrestricted domains of IDM and beatless ambient. "Leaving Burning Man" uses an accented bass line to set the progressing melody beneath the swirling ambient sweeps. And the mind bending twists of glitching and stuttering rhythms of "Information Doubling" nod to the sound of Autechre. Even my nostalgic love for all the scents of 303 gets satisfied with an occasional prairie dogging of sound hiding just beneath the surface. And while the beat carries the movement forward, hazy melodies break through electrified cobwebs of sound to leave their unforgettable imprint.