By doffing its cap to the ?MacGuyver? actor and electronic music?s superstar simultaneously, Sami Pennanen (aka Sampen) gives notice of the breadth and strangeness of this, his latest explorations of the realms of home-made experimental electronica. Incongruously beginning with the mildly glitched sound of a boy singing and playing a guitar in his bedroom, USO quickly moves into more familiar electronic squeaks and tricks but always manages to retain your interest through the use of bizarre samples, odd textures and sometimes all-out baffling forays into something completely different right in the middle of a section ? I swear the first time I listened to this a doom-rock band started up halfway through a particularly jolly bit of bouncy beats, but completely missed it last time. It?s this kind of quirky behaviour that marks a refreshingly irreverent and ambitiously varied approach to the creation of songs, and each of the twelve tracks USO has conjured up here works surprisingly well to make a kaleidoscopic yet coherent and satisfying whole. Good stuff, all. 8/10 -- Dave Stockwell (8 August, 2005)