The members of Appliance cling to the architectural adage that form follows function. Even this record's title, Six Modular Pieces, proclaims this utility maxim. Appliance have created a six track EP that, like designer Scandiwegian furniture, can be adapted to the contours of your living space and provide an edgeless cool to your habitat.

Or so they would like to imagine. The cover art, a snapshot of a strip light, announces the record as an interior design object to be placed wherever enhancement is needed. It's a pity, then, that when one places the disc into their matte black disc changer, it adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Architecturally, Six Modular Pieces is a blueprint resting on a bag of cement in a brickyard-- all the pieces, none of the construction.

Appliance have said that Six Modular Pieces is their transitional record, abandoning the Trans Am sound of their debut, Manual, and heading off into an eclectic electronic drone-o-drome. We might have thought that this transition was spiked by the remix single on which Pole, Tarwater, and To Rococo Rot clicked, popped and Teutonically enhanced tracks from Manual. But we would be embarrassed by our grand assumption.

Actually, Six Modular Pieces is inspired by the quieter bits of Sonic Youth's Goo (five out of the six tracks) and the beep-bop bleeps of the KLF's "What Time is Love?" (the one left over). We get the nasty impression that the style committee of The Face put together Appliance as an updated Neu! But during the committee proceedings they negotiated away energy and verve and compromised with studied cool and arch reserve. Which do not make for anything more than obnoxious posturing.

I don't like being harsh about records and artists but releases such as Six Modular Pieces reek of rank artificiality. And it's not a defense that the band was aiming for a commentary on dehumanized modernity. To my ears, they've just copped some Thurston Moore riffs and paid a graphic designer to tart it all up. Less "form follows function" more "please dispose of carefully."

-Paul Cooper