Eric Avery

Listening to Help Wanted, one might think Eric Avery is a man ruled by his moods. His first formal solo project is dark and deep – dark in its intimations of disillusionment, isolation and alienation, deep in its layered electronic textures and sometimes-unsettling effects. Even on cuts like “Walk Through Walls (The Man Who Can Fly Pt. 5),” which has a droll, swaggering rhythm reminiscent of Kurt Weill, Avery conjures a dangerous, deluded figure who declares: “I can walk through walls and I can fly and that’s not all/ I’ve drunk the oceans dry and that’s left me all-powerful/ But that’s no help at all/ When you can’t see/ You won’t see me.”