Part Timer finely exhibits the moteer sound: pieces of a crackling energy and placid folk harmonies are swathed in the spray of analogue synthesizers, faint timbral effects, and reinforced by percussion doodles and breathy, warm vocal melodies.

On a handful of occasions, the work is pockmarked by the wistful finger-waving that characterizes so much folk or bedroom electronica. Tempos swell gently and recede into a hushed near-silence; melodies wash under softly gliding female vocals like riverside waves, while the odd snapping beat loses its way through a clumsy delay or overly spacious sound field, but little in the way of a distinctive form ever comes to fruition.

Elsewhere, though, the atmospherics seem more labored. Works such as "Sad Little Denis" and "Rain On My Window (Part Two" undergo a series of jolts - subtle jolts, to be sure, but jolts nevertheless. In the case of the former, for instance, skipping loops of piano and abrupt changes in pace strike up a nice rhythm between restraint and release while the latter takes a clicky ambience and coy guitar melody and fills it out well with the rich cadence of a mandolin and Nicola Hodgkinson's (of Empress) dreamy voice. In other places, compositions veer away from the tin can rhythms and indecisive melodies and replace them with a more pronounced pulse that not only highlights the resonant percussion, but also momentarily tears the piece away from the dusty bedroom aura of the other works. Part Timer therefore sits well alongside other releases from acts like The Remote Viewer and The Boats, but beyond this, the album is lacking in variety of texture and structure. 5/10 -- Max Schaefer (11 December, 2006)