Aptly named after the message sent into space to celebrate the installation of new technology on a US radio telescope, Arecibo Message, Boxcutter's third album, comes with a new and revamped sound. Articulate and intelligent, this release shows that Barry Lynn's project has evolved massively since his 2007 release, Glyphic. Stepping with both feet into the higher leagues of electronic music, Boxcutter leaves little room to doubt his abilities.

Fully aware that modern electronic music is essentially a recycling of old sounds and techniques, Lynn embraces and capitalizes on the clichéd sounds of house, hip-hop, acid jazz, funk and jungle. Throughout the album he daringly invites the early nineties back in from the cold, creating a highly textured exploration across genres, bending the rules whenever and wherever possible and using analogue synth, delay, clever melodic progressions, and blips that truly exceed the expected.

This thirteen-track album is characterized by a notable sense of space utilized to create an electronic playground with zero-tolerance for boredom. Each track its own, and the album doesn't fail to evoke a variety of emotions - flitting about from the sloping but highly-charged "Sidetrak" to the soothing then scary stellar title track (bringing up profound questions about aliens), and up and on again to the blithely-stuttering upbeat beauty, "Free House Acid".

Interestingly, "A Familiar Sound" takes its name from the recent debut release on Barry Lynn's new label, Kinnego Records, a collaboration with jazz/funk duo Kinnego Flux. So one can guess where some of Lynn's influences may have come from and why he chose to inject jazz and funk tones into what is essentially a 2-step-based piece. And who knows how on earth he managed to pull it off. Some would, no doubt, disagree; admittedly, with Arecibo Message being such a mixed bag, it takes awhile to appreciate every track.

Even with the invasion of what sounds like an acid jazz keyboard and guitar pedal effects, Boxcutter is still Boxcutter. Gone is the heavy sequencing found on 2006’s Oneiric, yet the artist keeps a tight hold of his dubstep roots and 2-step/garage influences, with drum patterns and sinewy basslines never drifting far from the usual. Lynn has simply succeeded in throwing out an unnecessarily processed sound to give his music a more fluid dynamic and has matured enough to begin to question the constraints of genre. From the reminiscent vocal squeaks of "Mya Rave v2" to the frighteningly dated-sounding vocals on "A Familiar Sound", as the audience absorbs this cleverly constructed gem of an album, it becomes clear that it cannot, and will not, be placed next to any other release this year and found wanting.

-Christa Macnaughton