Outside of Ameoba music in Hollywood, you will often bump into a man handing out bumper stickers that read “Drum Machines Have No Soul.” Very little is known about this lone crusader. Is he an out-of-work classically trained timpani player? Is he a marketing rep for Zildjian cymbals? Who knows? But his quest seems so absurd and outdated that it becomes quaint, like a silent movie star who is dead set against talkies. Everyone knows that drum machines have no soul. That’s why we love them. They’re clean and precise and will do things no live drummer would ever do in good conscience. What does any of this have to do with Plat? This Icelandic duo of Arnar Helgi Adalsteinsson and Vilhjalmur Palsson are well aware of their country’s reputation for producing glacial masterpieces, utilizing real and “fake” instruments to create droning melodious structures that only faintly resemble songs yet must clearly be defined as “music.” Fact is, live or Memorex (this duo can do both very well, thank you) the warm bubbles and clattering percussion on Compulsion refuse to make the IDM vs. indie debate a wedge issue. One moment, they fall into a post-rock groove reminiscent of Tortoise. The next, and they’re wrenching a laptop-accelerated convulsion from what must be a floor-to-ceiling pile of gear. And the next, it’s pure ambient bliss-out that would make Pete Namlook blush. Best of all, it’s doubtful that even the most OCD gearhead could suss out all of the intricacies drifting through the headphones. – Joshua Glazer