A roughly hewn concept album about various moments in the life of one man (who, with shitty luck, was told by a fortune teller that he'd croak on the same date as the album's title), May 23rd 2007 is an intricate, fragile memory puzzle. Though the occasional harmonic chorus line is the closest The Kallikak Family ever come to lyrical content, the album evokes layer upon layer of visual phenomena, giving flesh to the waves of theremin, fragile loops and primarily organic soundscapes that live at its heart.

In the middle of it all stands the man, a figure who will walk through your mind with far greater ease than you might have suspected before giving the album a whirl. "Portland, Oregon" parts one through four, weave ocean sounds, back-alley mystics and the sound of laughing schoolchildren into a soundscape that, at its most distant, plays like a voyeur's wet dream. At its most intimate, it slips you under the skin of the album's ever-searching protagonist. It's only once a processed keyboard or sparse guitar line drops that you'll remember you're not exploring a different world, but sitting in your room listening to an album.

Even strictly musical tracks like the delicate "Guitar 2" sustain May 23rd's sensual atmosphere. Once you've reached the "Final Phase", the mysterious, spiritual quality of the man's world will feel both claustrophobic and freeing, ever changing and completely non-dependent on his or your own existence. It's a sentiment that the two of you will have to come to terms with as the closing title track slowly, calmly, inevitably calls you toward home and absorbs you like water into the earth.

In the end, all that matters is May 23rd, 2007, and the way it somehow snaps you out of one dream only to conjure another, to skip from the inner city to the edge of the ocean in a matter of minutes, all the while maintaining a singular focus. The Kallikak Family have defied all expectations of experimental music; beneath the album's seemingly scattered collection of loops, instruments and non-verbal vocals, a single, searching heartbeat awaits you.