Working with sculpted synth tones, hollow-bodied percussion samples, and stretched bursts of static, Jetone (a side-project of Tim Hecker) focuses on the rhythmic build-ups and interactions of the songs in Ultramarin, his second (and, to date, last) album under the Jetone name.  Housy 4/4 bumps collide with fractured sound injections, with the layers slowly cycling against each other to produce the majority of the album’s activity.  Though the sonics are undeniably produced with great polish and attentiveness to their shaping, the music itself tends to be rather dull, feeling something like auditory wallpaper, or excerpts from program executions. 

The main sense of Hecker’s personality in the music is communicated through its restraint and deliberation, and while the album does paint him as pains-taking in that regard, it rarely makes for stimulating listening (”Thousand Oaks” being the prime exception, with its more active bent and quicker fading in and out of loops).  Even when there’s clear effort built into shifting the loop qualities over a run (e.g., “Phoedra II”, with its swell and sink of percussion prominence), the songs don’t really go anywhere with it, but instead seem to circle in place for several minutes before simply ending.  Decent background noise, with a few moments worth attention, but overall, very low-key with its energy and innovation.