I think I love music because, secretly, subtly, it exposes our weird, idiosyncratic hearts. Ever since I first heard Hi Red Center, I watched my heart get slammed onto the worktable and flattened, caressed and molded like so much stoner's clay - never tossed in the kiln, always wet and ready to be shaped into some other weird misshapen mess. This great feeling can't be priced and, funny as it is, the experience of listening to Assemble would be probably be appraised altogether differently by other listeners. And that makes me feel great, too. Kurt Vonnegut said, "Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"

I want to feel less alone in my appreciation for Hi Red Center, and if you, any of you, lend it your ear, I think you'll be surprised - surprised by sneak-attack polyrhythms and ghostly vibraphones. These four guys - united by the percussion program at a state school in New York -carefully arrange their music into a triptych approach consisting of a.) moths-to-a-flame scattershot free-time, b.) strict Machine Age lockstep, and c.) sheer, shiny beauty. It's stunning and so, so much fun. This sort of geeky musicianship usually never has time for hooks, but the band's deadpan playfulness is, really, the trump card. It hits me hard where it counts, and you know, maybe that's just me. But I don't think so.

Jeff Tobias