Now is certainly not the most auspicious time to be an IDM artist, at least in terms of press exposure and "Q" rating. Back in the late '90s, it could sometimes seem as if the whole concept of rock in the independent scene would be swallowed up beneath a wave of eerie, skittering beats created on laptops by turtleneck-clad ascetics. Remember Kid A? Many in the music press played up the Aphex Twin homages that Radiohead packed into that one as if it were the surrender in some guitars-versus-electronics war. Now, after everything seems to have moved toward a very different sort of equilibrium, artists like Deru can, unfortunately, be pigeonholed as practitioners of yesterday's genre, and therefore ignorable.

But it is now, in the genre's maturity, that we can expect to hear some of the most intriguing variations on its themes -- and it is precisely these subtleties, these variations, that Deru delivers in spades.

Though there are moments that are dominated by drum effects, and periods during which rhythm takes the front seat, Trying To Remember derives most of its personality from the long stretches in which the rhythm is subsumed, or simply glossed over in favor of the organic and glitchy sound effects that are the album's real focus. In fact, one of Trying's most drum-forward, conventional-techno moments, "Tapah", proves to be the disc's weakest link: without the smooth, flowing delivery of crackling IDM effects and cool, cool organs, the singular pleasure of listening to Deru tends to get lost in the mix.

It's better to focus on a track like "The Days Before Yesterday", where the beat structure seems to hesitate, to worry about getting in the way of everything else that's going on in the piece. Deru has a way of altering the volume of a given sound within the mix so that it seems to fade up, or back, and in so doing he creates the sort of variation-through-repetition that was a mainstay of music back in the seventeenth century. Is this the intent? You wouldn't think so, but the comparison may well say something about the continuum of what works in music: Deru's work is strongest when, ignoring the piles and piles of equipment, the million upon million sounds that he can generate, he focuses on finely tuned manipulation of just a few variables.

Take, for example, opener "I Don't Know You", which kicks off on a long, ringing chime of the variety that conveys distance or memory to the listener. From out of that distance, noises start to fade in, one at a time. By the time the rhythm filters in, layers of skittering static, eerie organ tones, vocal snippets and other ephemera have already been well established. The effect, eventually, is of a rhythm that can't start up properly. The snare hits are dissolved and spread across the static, while the rest of the music curls around and envelops them.

Certainly, start-stop rhythms and totally undanceable dance beats are far from a rarity in the IDM scene, but Deru has a way of making the melodic and/or noisy portions of the mix seem to converse with the rhythms. It's a subtle skill, but in the IDM world it's often the subtleties that define a given artist's style. As a statement of individual aesthetics, Trying To Remember is a nuanced and impressive album that will, hopefully, find the ears of some listeners who are interested in hearing great, thoughtful work.