Back when I was a pup, the whole one-man-band thing sounded like, well, a band. Think about those early Prince albums or Frank Zappa's Barking Pumkpin stuff--or, really, those awesome mid-70s Stevie Wonder albums. They were pretty much put together by one person, but they sounded like bands.

The Landing We Are EP (self-released)

The electronic revolution is an astonishing thing, and it has become easy to multi-track vocals and layer electronic instruments (yes, Zappa was doing this 30 years ago, but he was a genius and all that). What's lost is the whole "band" sound. The Landing sounds just like what it is: one man's personal idea of what music should sound like.

And that's not a band. Rather, these are a series of ideas thrown together in a meditative gauze. The beats pop and break, the harmonies waft and sizzle and the songs themselves kinda come and go. The Landing isn't so big on beginnings or endings, and this all-too-short EP is more of a piece than a collection of five songs.

So there's got to be more coming, right? This came out last spring, so we can hope for more soon. The web site is utterly elliptical and almost incoherent. And that's cool. I can't quite pin this one down, and I think that's a very good thing.

The Landing has declared its existence. The next step is defining that existence. I can't wait to hear that.

Jon Worley