Frozen in Motion erupts into your eardrums with a metallic clatter and pinpoint shots of sound and then, just shy of a minute in, reforms itself in a dubstep-based mode and takes full control of your groove centers. This is “Hajime,” the first track, and it’s the stepping-off point for a lip-smacking dose of sweet electronica. Chris Child, recording as Kodomo, takes a sound-set steeped in the ordinary noises of everday life and kneads them into new shapes to put together in this constantly shifting, always engaging CD. Heavy on the jerky rhythms of glitch and, as noted, giving deep debt to dubstep, Frozen in Motion is stocked full of ear-catching moments. Check out the point in “S Equals Zero” where things suddenly take off like someone gave an orchestra playing Phillip Glass an overdose of Red Bull–this coming out of a quieter, much more lounge-friendly structure to take you by surprise. Stutter-stop glitches at just the right moments  pump it up even further up the cool scale. I like the industrial edge that pushes “Collide,” along with the pulse-modulated and always uncertain rhythm at work, like a car that’s just about out of gas, surging unevenly. “Gate 5A” goes post-rock, complete with catchy hook and lush string sounds, including cello from Dave Eggar, to soften it up. Guitar from Thad De Brock rounds out the texture nicely and helps set the track apart from the more purely electronic tracks. The title track feels like a guilty pleasure of dance-floor-worthy riffs. Again, Child plays with the modulation, shoving sounds at us and pulling them right back. This track possesses serious funk. Overall Child does a great job of mixing up his styles, track to track, but staying within that common framework of dubstep/glitch as his driving themes. With each element doled out wisely rather than thickly ladled on, Frozen in Motion remains engaging, start to finish. This is a disc you most definitely need to hear.

Available from Kodomo’s web site.