The almost 20 minute long “Rocket Sandals” opens Alone Vimalakirti Blinks and immediately tests the listener’s ability to endure a long journey through different worlds and a vast array of sound textures. Layers of looped strings violently dive and jab into each other, creating a claustrophobic mood by reducing space. Six minutes in, a pizzicato loop promotes paranoia, making it clear that Aranos has modified the traditional—the sandal—with the contemporary—electronic devices, specifically a rocket. It is this sort of radical imaginative possibility, namely the refusal to accept established conceptions and categories of objects and sounds, which motivates the album.

But as soon as the familiar has been made to sound unrecognizable and terrifying, a waltzing piano takes center stage, but only long enough before a brooding arrangement of strings replaces it. Aranos’ vision of sound modalities is bundled with a radical notion of play. The six transitions on “Rocket Sandals” show the artist momentarily lingering between modes and their associated instruments, juxtaposing their differences such that new, dream-like worlds unfold. By challenging and de-contextualizing these traditional ontologies—by playing with them—Aranos simultaneously constructs a fresh palette with which to work.

Aranos has written that “This Job Is So Boring” is “inspired by years, centuries, millennia, eternities of factory work … producing expensive rubbish for people to buy on credit, so [that] they have to work in similar jobs.” This reproductive quality of capital is mirrored on the track as the repetitive phrases move without disruption, voraciously gaining momentum. The sound of the morning commute is produced by a string arrangement at the beginning of the track, and these sounds segue into those of a factory as blasts of industrial noise and deep-drilling punish the ear.

“Yellow Bedspring” verges on the comical, playfully waltzing along while mixing strings with what sounds like a synthesizer and a Rhodes keyboard. While there is the impression of a calm, celebratory feeling, the threat of a return to the factory is always lurking in the form of sorrowful strings. As the track builds, a nightmarish frenzy returns accompanied by a frolicking piano that perhaps represents the equally eternal power and memory of play.

“Better Universe No. 2” finds Aranos contrasting idyllic sounds with the whirring rushes of a disruptive automobile. However, it might be wrong to conceptualize the sound of the engine as disruptive, because the crashes and bangs of modern machinery are inescapable and have been forever merged with the “mythical” idea of pre-modern tranquility. “Seedling Awakens” is puzzling because one would expect a harsher depiction of the new replacing the old. Instead, Aranos imagines the process as contemplative and smooth; the “new” is portrayed as patient rather than overzealous.

Alone Vimalakirti Blinks concludes with Aranos’ rendition of the traditional gospel song, “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” The song is both gleeful and mocking, for while there is a happiness in the possibility of paradise, there is a simultaneous disbelief in that possibility. At first, it is difficult to understand how this song is meant to provide closure to the album. On Alone Vimalakirti Blinks, Aranos exhibits a schizophrenic amalgam of references, tones, and sound modes, refusing to align himself with one particular approach, momentarily lingering within each. This is consistent with the ironic disposition exemplified on “Swing Low.” Namely, there are infinite worlds of meaning and possibility, and so we would be foolish to pledge allegiance to a single interpretation or ideal. Rather, we ought to dislocate ourselves and play from many perspectives, constantly blurring the lines that enforce their artificial separateness.