Isotope's 1997 debut album, The Unstable Molecule, was a melting pot of electric Miles and U.K. downbeat trip-hop stylings. With the departure of trombonist Sara P. Smith after Molecule, Isotope's horn-heavy sound has been slowly replaced by sound effects, samples and studio manipulation. Thanks in large part to Mazurek abandoning his cornet for his laptop, Isotope's sound has become more synthesized and alien, floating across Kubrickian space vistas like an extraterrestrial transmission. Where horns once swooped and swooned, unidentifiable radar blips cavort, and the jazzy rim shots and brushed snares of Molecule and 1999's Utonian Automatic have been replaced with percussive clicks and skittering drum 'n' bass patterns. Moreover, the compositional structure of previous efforts has been done away with altogether.
Ideas stack upon one another as grooves appear and disappear with impish levity.
The album's space-age kitchen sink approach is often more distracting than interesting, however. Walkman seems to resist repetition at all costs, leaving the listener to dangle while the good grooves pass on by. As a 12-note guitar figure plods deliberately along, tribal percussion and moody horns build to a fever pitch until exploding like an angry hive of cyborg bees. But even Walkman's most awkward stabs at innovation are a welcome respite from the stagnant pop that rules the radio.