There’s much joy in comparison. Inara George has a new online-only album about to drop this month titled Accidental Experimental. She has two previous albums under her solo belt, including an orchestral romp bearing the name An Invitation with arrangement stud Van Dyke Parks (remember the lush Beach Boys orchestrations?) On this brand new LP, she rehashes a Parks collaboration on the song “Accidental.” It flits and slides from key to key, a likely nightmarish sound for the general populace, but an aural treat for a difficult man like myself. And so, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get down to brass tacks:

[audio: https://ofadam.com/blogaudio/inarageorge_accidental_old.mp3] Old version: Orchestral arrangements automatically add a few points of musical karma to even the trash produced by the Lars Ulrichs and Metallicas of the world. It’s frantic, maybe detrimentally, but each listen rewards with a new discovery. Layers slide aside, revealing such brilliant dissonance that certain wrong notes resolve into something very right. It is a wild garden, untamed and unkempt.

[audio: https://ofadam.com/blogaudio/inarageorge_accidental_new.mp3] New version: The “remake” reminds me of an edited manuscript. The chaff is boiled away, leaving a malty substance that gets right to the point. Harpsichords enter at minute one, and the initial impression is extreme pleasure; this is musical velvet. It saunters onward, until the 2:50 mark, when the carousel runs out of gas and those with decent audio systems are gently massaged with a bass line stepping downward into the basement.

But like any contest, there must be a victor. You iron your cotton shirts, stack your dishes in neat piles and generally stay within the dashed lane markers while automobiling. That’s enough order in life; go for the pandemonium.