How much you're into this is dependent on your patience as a music listener. We should all have more patience! Nine minutes isn't that long, right? Oren Ambarchi and Robin Fox’s "Standing Mandala" is all build, spending much of its runtime sounding like it is supposed to be scoring a heist scene in an early ’90s action comedy (you know the part where it's pretty funny and then it gets serious, and then there's, like, a booby trap and it's kind of funny again...am I just describing Home Alone?), but then machines start whirring and the track seems destined for noisy release—except it just cuts off. "Standing Mandala" isn't an easy piece to listen to, but it's not difficult either. Mostly it seems like Ambarchi and Fox are playing with expectations, using what the listener expects to hear as a component of the song. Connected is out October 22nd on Kranky.
Download: Oren Ambarchi & Robin Fox, "Standing Mandala"