Trying to pigeonhole what genre this solo album from Pere Ubu co-founder and electronic artist Ravenstine is part of is pointless. In its 18 tracks, the hour-long album moves from the jazzy balladry of Sentimental Duet to the soaring ambient abstraction of 537 to White Plains. Who says old avant-garage acts can’t teach everyone something? Not me. This is killer.

Tracks conjure up ambient soundtracks, jazzy miniatures, space age exploration, world music, the ghost of Harry Partch, and, on “Day Shift,” the industrial dance floor... Waiting for the Bomb is a stunningly mature work that provides new and surprising sonic rewards with each and every listen.

...Ravenstine created a unique and distinctive sound that relied on a purely experimental and highly improvisational approach that worked within the contexts of art rock and electronica.

an intriguing and delightfully odd record

...maybe the most striking sonic aspect is just how subtle it is while being untethered to anything resembling rock.

...a splendid document of the point where the avant first approached the garage.

It's easy to tell when someone is out there on their own - no one can follow. That's the paradox of the pioneer. There's only one Pike's Peak, it's Pike's - everyone else is a tourist. Allen Ravenstine is a pioneer of existential acoustics. His work with the band Pere Ubu, like that of other pioneers, defined a new paradigm in the form of the narrative and is, at the same time, a dead end. Forty years later, tourists are swarming up and down the Pike's Peak of electronic music, leaving behind ever more grotesque graffiti. Electronic music is a freak show, ever more intent on divorcing Sound from Meaning. Allen has not followed the herd. His eye is singular and focused on story-telling.

...a momentary reprieve from the stultifying asphalt of the city and recycled promises of its returning greatness. The city's dreams and the dreams of its residents are encapsulated herein.

...Ravenstine’s work has never been more conventionally alluring and approachable, whilst never loosening its abstract grip, and secondly, it imparts real dynamic and contrast when the album in its later stages reverts largely to his signature style. The 15-minute sequence of Out Late/Waiting/Spirits at the two-thirds mark of the album is a darkly exhilarating vertex of heathaze menace, absolute third-eye classic Ravenstine and all the more powerful for the tether to and twist against the more ludic and fanciful excursions around it.