There is an easy Jamaican rhythm in "Soul Jah," a rollicking side-to-side motion of the rhythm section that moves like a boat on a gentle tide beneath the winsome keyboard melody. The melody sounds like it is being provided by an air-compressor driven instrument, a nasal tootle that sounds like a child's toy. Percussion pops and clatters in "Bank Shot" like the geometric rhythm of pool balls clicking about the table, the cues rattling against the polished wood of the table edge. "Violent Children" actually manages to line a group of the little whippersnappers up and get them to provide a hand clap pulse beneath a grizzled guitar line and a saucy keyboard melody. Bass and a saxophone drift through the studio like a pair of lovers performing a slow fox trot.
While Gastelum employs a number of musicians to lay down the framework for his tracks, all the music gets dumped into a laptop where it gets tweaked, bent, and twisted. He's got a poem in his head, you see, stanzas that he's got to get out. But all he's got is sound and all we hear is a wordless ode to poetic meter.