Aranos has been a very busy Bohemian bee the past few years having released a 7" on Klanggalerie, a 10" on Beta-lactam Ring Records and several albums including art/music collaborations with Nurse With Wound. Here the Ireland based multi-instrumentalist mixes it up with Milwaukee's Jon Mueller and Chris Rosenau of Pele and Telecognac among others. Seven oddly titled tracks make up the 45 minutes on this edition of 500 on Crouton Records (croutonmusic.com). "The Other is B flat" sets into motion a hypnotic lullaby of small metallic objects, electronic swirl, delicately plucked guitars and long, bowed violin notes. The next four tracks continue the flow with a background becomes the foreground sort of mellow surrealism: orphaned snippets of ambient wash/drone, the clanking of clutter, mildly distorted scraped electric strings, minor electronic discharge and brief piano flutter. In particular, "Thinking of Penis and Vagina" makes me think of a light breeze propelling a rusty swing in an empty park just barely within earshot of a train yard. "Now Sparkling Ice" is apparently all Aranos and it sounds that way. It's a peculiar yet warm vocal and violin piece in which he accompanies himself both vocally and musically. The first half of the final track "Boiled Pear" violently churns through binary garbage over stray piano/banjo notes and a floating background presence, then quietly settles through the latter five minutes. Far from random and abrasive, "Bleeding.." is accomplished and very pleasant indeed: the sort of disc that demands to be played from start to finish and you lose yourself in. The packaging is a pretty fold-up with equally surreal poetry upon the flaps. Get this while you still can. - Mark Weddle

A collaboration between Crouton mainmen Jon Mueller and Chris Rosenau, and Nurse With Wound/Current 93 collaborator Aranos - a Bohemian multi-instrumentalist with a scary singing voice, this is at the same time both wilfully difficult and surprisingly listenable. The collision of styles given here is entirely successful, as is the mixture of traditional instruments and manipulated sounds - something that it is very easy to get wrong. The two long pieces that close the album are particularly fine, with the gorgeous harmonies that begin 'Now Sparkling Ice' giving way gradually to scraping fiddle and dolorous, tortured vocals. It is as if a gypsy violinist set up shop in a science laboratory next to a cathedral, the soaring strings finally giving way to calculated weirdness, which leads nicely in to the caustic jabber of 'Boiled Pear'; ten minutes of inspired noise jumble, which sounds like Matmos put through a food-processor. The crystal-clear recording gives this track in particular a frozen, jarring, almost painful ambience that has me in mind of the sudden clarity induced by an alcohol-induced migraine. Still, enough about tomorrow morning, for tonight these Croutons have frothed to the top of their successfully blended musical broth. Souperb. - Stewart Gott

This is an interesting, challenging piece of music. It's a collaboration between the Bohemian radical multi-instrumentalist Aranos, and Jon Mueller (percussion, electronics) and Chris Rosenau (guitar, electronics) of Pele. It is a fertile combination. Fans of groups like Nurse With Wound and Volcano the Bear should dig it, as should any enthusiast of music that doesn't sound anything like music but more like a more evenly mixed take on that garbage truck that's doing hell knows what outside your window at 5 a.m. Fortunately, it starts off easy. "The Other B is Flat" opens with some light, scraping electronics before a gypsy folk acoustic guitar pops up. More warbling, rising electronics and a bit of violin, both straight and processed, all get thrown into the mix. What results is at once old and recognizable, like a dream of the past from Eastern Europe, and new and unfamiliar, like disquieting, open-spaced ambience. "Monstrous Majority Muddle," is far more abstract as it mixes the ambient parts with jarring cuts to sound bursts, like alien radio signals suddenly coming in on your AM dial. "Peculiar Atlantic Game Fish" ups the action with a more aggressive concoction of electronics and other bizarre noise coming in from all directions in a massive collision. Best of all, though, is the inappropriately titled "Hair Blond Like Summer Swingsets," which juxtaposes electric guitar pulse chords, processed piano and other crazy electronics with a horrendously ominous rumble. Like much of our better, newer music, and, generally, all good art, Bleeding in Behind Pastel Screens rewards the patient and the not-so-easily deterred. This is not a record you can get a handle on at a Tower Records listening station. It must be lived with. If you choose to let it in, it can teach you a thing or two. - Dave Christensen

Aranos, probably best known for his work with Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), here teams up with two American musicians, Jon Mueller and Chris Rosenau, who have performed in the groups Pele, Telecognac, and Collections of Colonies of Bees (none of which are familiar to me). Aranos is a multi-instrumentalist (performing on anything from violin to oriental flutes and santoor) with a flair for creating a sort of avant-garde gypsy folk music (see his 1999 release Making Love in Small Places for a recent example). Mueller performs on percussion and electronics, while Rosenau handles guitar, banjo and electronics. The result of this collaboration is a strange blend of elements, and as the title of this album might suggest (what does it mean to be Bleeding In Behind Pastel Screens?), things get rather surreal, even a little unsettling. The music is dominated by metallic scrapings, hinges in desperate need of oiling, rough textures, strange melodies and bizarre manipulations. Sometimes interesting, but sometimes merely annoying, these arrangements had a double effect on me, some days I enjoyed this music, and others I could hardly tolerate it. Now this is probably saying more about me and my listening habits than about the record itself, but one never knows with this sort of thing. I cannot deny that occasionally there are some captivating arrangements and some nice details in these pieces. A strange vocal arrangement in "Now Sparkling Ice" has Aranos crooning like a sad, tortured lounge singer. The disc ends nicely with a more quiet instrumental meditation. Overall an intriguing record, one that will inspire you (if you're anything like me) to either sit up and pay attention, or get up and switch it off completely. - Cristobal Q