Neuro… No Neuro :: Card Catalogue (Dragon’s Eye)

Can you create your own Zen on an eleven-hour flight from Berlin to Miami? I gave it a try with the February 2025 album Card Catalogue, by Neuro… No Neuro. Flights are a world of fleeting moments and constant interruptions. This album invites you to pause, sift through your mental archives, and find solace in the texture of memory.

The texture of memory

Can you create your own Zen on an eleven-hour flight from Berlin to Miami? I gave it a try with the February 2025 album Card Catalogue, by Kirk Markarian aka Neuro… No Neuro. Flights are a world of fleeting moments and constant interruptions. This album invites you to pause, sift through your mental archives, and find solace in the texture of memory.

The journey begins in a place that feels like yours but isn’t entirely familiar. “In Your Own Backyard” crackles softly, perhaps with fire or distant wind chimes, drawing you into its simulated sanctuary. Treble piano tinkles arrive like drops of sweat cooling your forehead—gentle reminders that time is still moving. By “Small Walking Pebbles,” you find yourself on a slightly detuned garden path, where a steady pad pulls you forward with an almost hypnotic rhythm. It’s not just music; it’s the tactile sensation of fingers brushing across a card catalogue drawer, the glide and click of memory coming alive.

Images shimmer before they settle ::

Each track feels connected yet fragmented, like flipping through a mental Rolodex where the images shimmer before they settle. “Corners to Curves” moves with a disjointed elegance, its starts and stops like moments of hesitation in thought. Will it stop? Will it linger? Static chips and swirling pads beckon backward while plodding forward, offering a kind of graceful disorder. “Limited Patience” pulls you into the waiting game, where chip-tune static and marimba-like tones mimic turn signals and restless fidgeting. It’s the sound of traffic jams and muted frustration. There’s even a faint echo of Godley & Creme’s “I’m Not in Love”—not in its romantic sweep, but in its whispered pauses and glacial unfolding, as if the track itself is hesitating, unsure whether to move forward or stay suspended. “You Chose This” feels like its companion piece, breaking the wait into smaller, more impatient fragments.

“Red Birds & Blue Birds” brings you back to the backyard, a mossy soft space where birds gather for their daily hits. They hop and peck in the rain-soaked grass, then scatter with the breeze. “Portions” is the long lingering goodbye of Card Catalogue. Beautiful but reminiscent of the too long moments of hugging when having just broken up with someone. Profound, but a pain to be filed away and remembered some other time.

If you can achieve peace in the chaos of an airplane, then your backyard might truly be heaven.

Card Catalogue is available on Dragon’s Eye February 28, 2025. [Bandcamp]