*** Macha

SEE IT ANOTHER WAY

(Jetset)

A year after debuting with a startling album that melded Western indie rock with the pulsing, trance-inducing drones of Indonesia, Georgia's Macha have returned with a sophomore disc that again explodes conventional expectations of what pop music can be. Utilizing an array of Eastern instruments like hammered dulcimer, vibraphone, zither, and the "Fun Machine" that proved such a peculiar highlight of the band's Middle East appearance last year, the quartet bring an adventurous exoticism to songs that, had they been built on nothing but guitar-bass-drums, would still have sounded pretty cool. But here, the abraded guitar buzz of "Until Your Temples Are Pounding" is integrated into what sounds like an Indonesian street party of percussion, strings, and assorted other indecipherable noises. Later, the brooding instrumental, "Between Stranded Sonars," introduces itself with distant chimes and a faint drone that slowly builds as it gets louder, opening finally into a throbbing passage of probing slide guitar and drums that wouldn't have sounded out of place on Come's Eleven:Eleven. When it comes to pop, the musically omnivorous Macha really do have their own way of seeing things, and that's what makes them so promising.

-- Jonathan Perry