New Jersey's Flowchart (previously called Heroine) were built to create a sensation. Multi-Personality Tabletop Vacation (Carrot Top, 1996), recorded when they were still all underage, was the critical case of the month, drawing comparisons to Faust and Neu, and, of course, to the reigning oddity of alternative rock, Stereolab (whose Avant-Garde MOR they mimick in Here Wine) The mystery is that the single Acoustic Ambience/ Wurlitzer Inn (Fuzzy Box, 1996) is highly original and engaging, hardly the product of the same band that put out such a derivative album.

That shoegazing nightmare also permeates the EP Tenijra (Darla, 1997), resulting in lenghty ecstatic jams. The 4-song Evergreen Noise Is Flexible (Fuzzy Box, 1997) is sort of a compromise between the album's Stereolab sound (Evergreen Noise Is Flexible) and the EP's shoegazing excesses (Of A) hypnotic dub (Euphemism Toys) cosmic psychedelia (Dream Song Of Magnetic Travels) Sean O-Neal, Brodie Budd and Craig Bottel show tremendous progress. Yet another EP, Hollow Sky (BUrnt Hair, 1997)

Flowchart may have found their true voice on Cumulus Mood Twang (Carrot Top, 1998), an album inspired by a different kind of sound. Flowchart updates and stretches My Bloody Valentine's droning symphonies (Rust A La Glare) and Enya's magical fairy tales (Icicles And Clipboards). And Envelopment Continuum sells the concept to the masses. All in all, a balanced album with some intriguing ideas.