The fourth album from , (a duo that create albums by sending tapes across the continent), After All, has a magnificently broad scope, melding abstract hip-hop, ambient jazz, squelchy techno, and all manner of offbeat samples, field recordings, and the vocals of laconic rapper Andrew Siegler into one warped, genreless whole. It's ingenious, that's for sure; the many-layered tense spy-film dramatics of "Truce For A Moment" and the acoustic twangs and lurching breakbeats of "An Seanachi" are the essence of complexity. Trouble is, nothing here seems to completely click; lacking the focused, single-minded genius of individual producers like or --two music-makers that seem to value the freedom that complete autonomy gives them--much of After All is meandering and inconclusive, a collection of over-elaborate doodles in search of a point. Who would have thought that it only takes two cooks to spoil the broth? After All is proof that modern electronica is an exacting discipline. -- Louis Pattison