Anonymous is CIAM’s first release. I only recently found it on VINYL. Although it’s apparently been out for about a year. It’s a crime that this album hasn’t had more publicity, or should I say any publicity. It seems that CIAM (pronounced see-am) has had only what publicity they themselves have managed to scare up. They have managed to put in an appearance on KCRW, a West Coast US station which has a wide audience and influence across the US, as well as outside the US. They did about a 36-minute show that can be seen here.CIAM has been tagged as alternative, emotronic and experimental, although I wouldn’t stop there. My first thought as soon as the album started was, “The king is dead. Long live the king.” King Crimson, that is. On my first listen to this album — I didn’t look at anything beforehand to influence me, no liner notes, no Google, nothing — I decided after about 30 seconds that this band just might make a good successor to King Crimson, who’s been out of circulation far too long. Then, when the final cut came on, “Epitaph,” I knew for sure I’d found a worthy successor to the King. Actually, “Epitaph” was originally done by King Crimson close to 40 years ago, and I don’t think I’ve heard any other group (except the electronic trip-hop version by WALDECK) even dare try it until now. King Crimson was one of the first groups of what is now termed prog rock, although Crimson was much more than just progressive rock. CIAM also have vestiges of art-rockers such as Brian Eno, at least one of the members is classically trained, and the group also cites Philip Glass as an influence.Anonymous is an ambitious first release in many ways. First, it’s a CD and DVD together in one package and it also came as limited VINYL edition, with the same music appearing on both formats. Yet, the DVD is a real video adventure, with extensive avant-garde, art-rock influences which require your full attention to get full benefit. With successive viewings, I seemed to pick up new and different nuances each and every time.

Tiring of insipid indie rock, these London art rockers provide rousing respite. The product of Brits of arts and design backgrounds, Ciam's futuristic widescreen Wall of Sound, paranoid android film music is what you'd get if you diced Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Tubeway Army, Stranglers, and Doves into a galactic glaze, with spacy spices of Velvet Underground and David Bowie acknowledged via an electro-pop reworking of Lou Reed's 1967 The Velvet Underground & Nico classic "Venus in Furs." In fact, on the standout opener "Here I Am," Hadar Goldman plays John Cale to frontman Jeff Shapiro's vision via a gnarly but pretty viola solo. Whenever he plays that or violin, Goldman adds an elliptical element to the bigger-than-life keyboards, billowing guitar shadings, and rollover repetition. Anonymous is moody as all get out, and its nervous ambiences capture a slice o' the times.