The Todd Tobias debut <em>Medicine Show</em> is muffled, loud, groovy, crazy, and one hell of a lot of fun. An aesthetic swing vote, a signpost for those of us who made the leap from hair metal to experimental electronic by way of Rob Zombie and late-career Skinny Puppy. It is the kind of story we love reading about, too. A dutiful band member and established music producer releases his first solo effort, an instrumental-only affair, devoid of pop hits, and a significant departure from his day job. To say nothing of much better listening.

Tobias seems most comfortable with brief sketches of rhythm sections: “Flesh Interval,” “Clubfoot’s Return,” and “Half Animal” all certainly apply. (Beware of citing tracks out of sequence like this. There seems to be some kind of narrative at work here: song titles like “Manatoc Is Born,” then “Manatoc Enters The City/The Long Fall,” and “Death Watch” underscore this point better.) Of those first three track, “Flesh Interval” is likely the best candidate for album sampler: fewer than ninety seconds of guitar, recorder and drum, wet with that hollowed-out, slack-stringed dissonance that invites the too-soon Sonic Youth comparisons. “The Pathfinder” absolutely cries out for a music video built around a Hells Angels showdown in Nevada. The rumbling, Mojave guitar and shimmer of flanger heat deserve nothing less.

The featured tracks are short enough (well under three minutes, on average) that what would function as transitions for other albums are downright conspicuous here. But an artist’s risks are better told by his failures than his successes, and the few shortcomings throughout Medicine Show are benign enough. The echoed guitar and feather-light bells of “Manatoc Is Born” aren’t exactly injurious, although they aren’t terribly interesting, either, so the brief audio clips and processed commotion of the song’s last minute do not provide enough counterbalance. Try instead the impeccably-named “Shadows With Teeth,” a murky, carnivorous piano piece that rattles the jaw with its reverberations. Or try the psychedelic title track, with its retro-metal drum march, AOR organ lick, and flower child choral weirdness.

As music continues its trend of all distinct brands joining with all others, it seems inevitable that Alice Cooper nostalgia would merge with the see what I did there? electronic cleverness of generation Y (are we imagining things, or does “Manatoc Enters The City” share an organ lick with the Speed Race theme?). Whether or not Guided By Voices’ producer would have been our first choice for the job is beside the point. Todd Tobias has let the genie out of the bottle, and it’s got a Steppenwolf tattoo, it calls itself Manatoc, and it’s making a huge mess of things.

<a href="http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2012/04/todd-tobias-medicine-show/">Fluid Radio </a>