No matter how many times I play this CD-3, I can’t find anything substantial to focus on; and so I press repeat. This is probably not what Lexithimie had in mind when he titled this release. London-based, French-born Alexis Béchu operates in the field of modern ambience, and while the four selections here are sparse and lovely, they are not particularly well-developed or engaging.

These pieces (unimaginatively titled “Scale One” through “Scale Four”) offer variations on undulation with slight tonal shifts and washes of harmonic convergence. Listeners may become lulled if they have not had a good night’s sleep, or bored if they have. Those who already own a great deal of genre-related music will find that the disc pales in comparison to others in their collections, and this is the tiny CD’s greatest liability. The masters of ambience know how to create music that neither jumps into the foreground nor fades into the background.No Matter How Many Times, Repeat is certainly not foreground music, but it lacks the developmental shifts that would mark it as effective background music. It’s a pretty little thing, but it’s not very useful.

Some may respond, “well, I tend to like pretty little things: the slight, the wispy, the sketched.”No Matter How Many Times, Repeat is not very long, and operates as a form of aural Xanax, so it may be to some people’s liking. As a stand-alone collection, it’s peaceful and soothing, tailor-made for the early morning or late night, especially if one needs a disc to drown out unpleasant urban noises: horns, shouts, shots. And yet, most suburban environments offer more interesting sounds than these: migrating birds, school-bound children, soft traffic; while bucolic communities are awash with the beauty of the immediate: bunnies in the carrot patch, babbling brooks, whispering winds. Field recordings would have helped this project by adding an air of the authentic. As it stands, No Matter How Many Times, Repeat comes across as thoroughly artificial: notes floating in a sterilized room.

I have no doubt that Lexithimie is capable of better things. At times, the wave-like layers are accented by high-pitched, tinnitus-sounding tones and popcorn suggestions of melody. These provide the EP’s most interesting moments, and if brought to the fore, they could be the basis of some very successful songs. The percussive elements on Lexithimie’s as-yet-unreleased tracks are a step in the right direction, the meat to these potatoes and evidence that the artist knows that a little extra development may go a long way. Success may be a few years off, but improvement is already in the wings.

-Richard Allen