Concentrick is the electronic alter ego of Tim Green, better known for his piss 'n' vinegar guitar work in the alternative hesher trio so eloquently dubbed The Fucking Champs, his former membership in that late great group of polemical punk pranksters known as Nation of Ulysses (which also, of course, produced indie rock's most notorious Prince wannabe, the Make Up Ian Svenonious), and his production work for artists like Karp, Melvins, and The Donnas (he heads the aptly named Louder Studios). Given that impressive but decidedly rock-oriented resume, Concentrick's lushly orchestrated ambient textures might seem like they're coming from deep left field, and perhaps that's true to a certain extent. But Green has long been a hardcore Kraftwerk fan obsessed with robot music and weird goofball electronics. As Concentrick he assembles a melange of dreamy sampled strings, esoteric synthesizer sounds, jerky drum machine beats, and reverbed drum kit breaks into appealingly offbeat compositions. It's a kind of pastiche of computer tunes, ethereal Eno-esque ambient atmospherics, proggy riffing, Krautrock noodling, and schlocky Z-grade science fiction movie music. Green's trademark humor is present in spades, both in the whimsical nature of the compositions themselves and the off-the-wall vocal samples that pop up occasionally, sounding sort of like surreal outtakes from soap operas of a parallel dimension.

By the way, Green gets occasional help from The Champs' other Tim, drummer Soete, who creates computer effects under the name DJ Spacey Space-M. Green has released a couple of albums under the Concentrick tag: Music for Tunnels and Tender Machines, the latter of which features "Shiningg" and "Special Elf." Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.