You know Brian McBride as one half of Stars of the Lid, the ambient outfit that for about 15 years has pretty much set the standard for immersive drone. He released a solo album five years ago that stayed mostly in similar territory to his band with a few stabs outside, but he's otherwise been pretty quiet musically while working on his doctorate and a parallel career as a debate coach. Perhaps due to the demands of writing and soundtrack, his second solo effort, The Effective Disconnect, takes small steps to further nudge the boundaries of his style outward. One of the primary differences between this and McBride's last solo effort, When the Detail Lost Its Freedom, is textural. Detail had a very specific idea at its heart-- there was a sense that you could hear the air moving between you and every sound, and it gave the record a kind of rough, distant aura. The Effective Disconnect keeps some of the distance, but the sounds are much smoother, more distinct and direct. The rhythmic pulses of these pieces of music are also a lot more varied. "Girl Nap" features what sounds like horns calling out long, static drones in a rhythm similar to breathing, which is familiar in McBride's work, but the quicker rhythm of the electric piano that underpins the drones is new. Other tracks build on that. "Bee Keepers vs. Warfare Chemicals" is more rapid than anything I've heard McBride do, with twinkling percussion and rapid chord changes in its opening half. It then shifts to a sparser s