“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” opens with the protagonist and his emotionally vacant wife discussing the appropriate settings they’ll dial on their “mood organ” for the day to get some wind in their sails. The paradox, in case you haven’t seen “Blade Runner” or “Star Trek TNG”, is that it’s hard to define what makes us human, especially if we can be chemically and algorithmically manipulated like a machine. I wouldn’t dispute Deckard or Data on that point. Not to spoil it for you, but the humanity or androidness is blurred and brought into question with each of them. I don’t know if there’s anyway to make a sad robot happy by playing cheerful music, but I’m susceptible to that sort of mood organ. I practically have my iPod playlists arranged by mood and I can dial into what I’m feeling, whether it’s to pull out of the doldrums or to stew in venom. That sounds bipolar – I have more than two playlists and a broad spectrum of to dial in.

I have contemplated before how music taps into memories that can in some cases turn to an aversion. Pulling in the idea of a playlist as dials on the mood organ I can see how I might go through phases fixating on one type of music and magnetic repulsion on others. When it comes to specific genres, like any pop music ever played on the radio, I wonder if they’re set on a mood frequency that is dissonant for my brain waves. Obviously there’s not going to be a successful commercial radio station that plays disaffected downer anthems for the morning commute. In David Byrne’s “How Music Works” I’m getting an idea of how, not too long ago, music was an ephemeral action that only existed in a narrow time and space. With recorded, portable, high fidelity music the experience and emotional response can be timeless and unbound by location.

Helen Marnie, calling on support through PledgeMusic, finally got the recording and mastering complete to her satisfaction this week and released Crystal World. I have delved deeply into the album for the essence of Ladytron and the lush chord finesse. With Ladytron she pairs her sing-song lyrics with jarring electronic discord. There’s a dial on my mood organ for aloof electro-clash — often I would say. But when I listened through Marnie’s record I felt chilled and bittersweet, completely out of sync with my mood receptors. It is still upbeat and cheery on the surface, but the lyrics and the subtly morose, lamenting undertones make me feel a rare and intense emotional register that pushes into my magnetic repulsion. It’s the same honey-sweet yet tragic sorrow you feel in “Wild at Heart” with Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” leading into the scene of a car crash and a dying girl frantically looking for bobby pins and her wallet in her last moment. It’s hard to watch but exquisite for when I want to dial into savory despair.