So, how often do you go into ye Olde CD Shoppe and ask the shiny topped music comptroller what to buy? I mean, one must assume that the man has listened to more music than sweet Jesus, and if Jesus suggested an album, wouldn’t you buy it? (Whatever, whatever. Just say yes. Look, if Jesus Christ gives you some advice, you take it.)

I sauntered into Cutler’s and asked him what to buy. I mean, I asked Kyle (the music dude) and not Jesus (the man-god). I asked what he thought of “Badly Drawn Boy,” which I was excited to buy solely because I had seen its sticker on a utility pole. I am always excited to buy things I see advertised on utility poles. However, he said, “Eh,” and I don’t buy music with that rating.

I told him I was thinking of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, and we both agreed that the album is the cleanest, most accessible ambient album out there. But then he suggested To Rococo Rot over the Eno, mostly because they didn’t have the Eno. So I bought his words and listened to the CD.

The music is simple, slowly changing. Flowing rhythms, layered atop each other, sound sometimes like Can, sometimes like Tortoise. According to www.allmusic.com, this German band is “an overt attempt to reconnect the art-school proclivities of musical experimentalism with the accessibility and ‘use-value’ of pop.” The liner notes say “Welcome in der maschine.”

It will be used as ambient background music when people are chilling in my room, because it will never get in the way. It is a good CD, but I don’t recommend it, mostly because you wouldn’t buy it anyway. You never buy random German Ambient albums that you read about in reviews. Admit it.

Still, this album can be definitively classified as “Good Walking Music.” The beat is approximate to rhythms of footsteps, so with a little pot on this lovely spring day, every motion I saw was synchronized with the music in my headphones. You’ll see me out walking today, 4-20-2001, blowing some bubbles for Bubble Day and celebrating the National Smoke Out, at approximately 4:20 post meridian. Will I see you at the party on the Green?