Luaka Bop debuted two new Geggy Tah songs (Sweat and Space Heater) on mp3.com in 1998 in advance of a projected 1999 release date. Due to label-hopping (and other issues?), Geggy Tah's follow-up to the surprising breakthrough Sacred Cow arrived in stores nearly five years later. The delays were not all negative. Into the Oh is more polished than their previous two albums. It is as if the band has released their fourth or fifth album with Into the Oh. It is easy, however, to feel cheated out of more frequent music from the group. The "party album" that the band once wanted to release is still missing in action. Understanding Into the Oh requires reestablishing a relationship with Geggy Tah, much like brushing up on a foreign language before traveling abroad. The reunion is well worth the wait. Into the Oh begins with a phone message from Tommy Jordan's granddad, much like Sacred Cow. This time the band turns it into the album's musical foyer -- an entrance to a personal reflection. "I wanted to ask you a question," granddad says. "Since you are not there I can't ask the machine. So I will say 'goodnight' to the machine." Granddad, unwittingly, has left behind a postmodern update to the famous philosophical quandary: If you leave an answering machine message and no one is there to hear it, did you have a conversation with a machine? So when the first song kicks in immediately, it sounds like Jordan was sitting alone in the dark, screening his calls. One Zero is about love in the information age, and also the emotional pitfalls found post-breakup. The song is based on a one-two rhythm much like the binary, computer-influenced lyrics of One Zero, Zero One. Trapped by routine, he tries to escape. The theme of Into the Oh is established early: maintaining optimism against attacks from loneliness, frustration, and alienation. Into the Oh grapples with the pain of personal growth and describes the rise from an emotional nadir. The overall mood is similar to when John Lennon followed the Paul McCartney lyric "Have to admit it's getting better" with his own "It can't get much worse." You can only understand the good by living through the bad. Into the Oh is replete with elegiac confessions "glowing blue, missing you" from One Zero or "I wish I could erase what I didn't do while waiting for you" from Special Someone. But joy is the most resonant motif, even in songs dealing with regret. Tears and sweat symbolize the struggles inherent in becoming skilled in relationships, in Sweat, a funky romp about sex. Holly Oak Tree sounds like the soundtrack to Shel Silverstein's -The Giving Tree minus the sexism. In the story, the tree gives and gives until it has allowed itself to be chopped to a stump. It is only after years -- and, arguably, too late -- that the boy appreciates the tree's gift of love. Holly Oak Tree is a song about romance and a world where carving your lover's initials into a tree is the ultimate sign of devotion. The ravages of time can never erase those shared moments, no matter how far away they slipped.

1		Goodnight To the Machine
2		One Zero
3		Dumb Submarine
4		Sweat
5		Holly Oak
6		Space Heater
7		Love Is Alone
8		Special Someone
9		I Forgot
10		Aliens Somewhere
11		I'll Find My Way
12		Love Is In Love

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