I became intrigued when I began seeing The Roboter – The Motoko Files showing up on my (Facebook) homethread newsfeed. By my usual stochastic process I discovered that The Roboter was associated with it, so I decided to give it a spin. The download and extraction resulted in something similar to the theme of the double album, the second being an audiobook, but I’ll reserve that for later. The fact that the first track is called “Aftermath” may give you some idea. This track is nice and dark enough, the kind of thing I like, but I can’t say that it stood out particularly. Obviously this is going to be an evocation of Blade Runner, Johnny Mnemonic, and cyberpunk such as Akira…

O.K., so NOW the hair on my arms is standing up. This ought to be the Cyber Prophecy bit; I’ll say why in a sec. This track is “Fragmented Memory.” Servomechanisms actuate, there’s a slow low grinding growl in back that adds to the bleakness of the ultramated megacity, but what gets me is the refined suspense created by the high sustained strings. They turned my nervous system into one big antenna, tunable and receptive to anything that came next. This must be the undecided fight-or-flight or friend-or-foe our animal brethren feel when they seem to growl at nothing in the darkness. Every system is on high alert, quivering, expectant, waiting, uncommitted, but at a critical point, some kind of cusp where the topology can change for bad or good. You just don’t know. From there it’s on to…

“The Cyborg Factor.” The story is developing. These are not tracks as much as they are episodes, but I don’t feel like giving anything away yet. It’s meanstreet-dramatic until the prototype-synthesizer beeps hoist you into the far future and into a robot dance of self-discovery. I’m guessing but I imagine that the protagonist Motoko is realizing that she’s a cyborg. More than that, a cyber-cop. My policy for listening to new music is to follow a raw protocol, which means ignoring the promotional penumbra that comes with a new release so that I don’t form any pre-judgments or inflexible expectations. The track titles are tantalizing enough, such as…