The sphere of human emotion is collapsing ever more quickly with the strains of the modern world, at least if modern music is anything to judge culture with. In a mere 20 years, we’ve witnessed songs shift from expressive outpouring of emotions -- be it anything from love to anger -- to a cool, cynical distrust of emotions entirely.

Now Edie Sedgwick shrinks the emotional bubble even further. A record composed entirely of avant-garde tributes to movie stars, First Reflections decries even cynicism: that too, is thinking for yourself. All that’s left is to consume popular culture and figure out ways to identify with the icons of celebrity placed before us. Edie Sedgwick doesn’t comment on commercialism in popular culture a la Andy Warhol or pen tongue-and-cheek odes to superstars in the vein of Wesley Willis; instead the bass-and-drum duo concentrates its efforts on reinterpreting the essence of each celebrity it eulogizes.

What are the implications for the individual in the post-cynic world described in First Reflections? Plenty. Where once we had emotion, then distrust for emotion, Edie Sedgwick’s commandment to live only the most vicarious of lives through celebrity worship squashes any idea of the individual whatsoever. We are not unique, the band declares, it is not even worth considering our individual emotional responses. Shut up and watch the screen. Whether the band tries to boil down the essence of the Home Alone star in "MacCauley Culkin" as a refugee from Never-Never Land, or Jane Fonda’s political causes in the song that bears her name, First Reflections is nothing but a cold, emotionless deconstruction of iconic stars.

As is the case with conceptual bands like this one (Edie Sedgwick was so conceptual, in fact, it had to hand out pamphlets at its first gig to clue the audience in on its "post-Warholian" take on the human condition), most of the effort put into First Reflections went into creating its ideological razor blade rather than developing its arrangements: a version of bass and drum rock (think either the Eternals minus the groove or Bonfire Madigan minus the cello melodies) that leans toward minimalism. The band’s songs sound alternately jazzy ("Gwyneth Paltrow") or like a track from Public Image Ltd.’s Second Edition (1979, Warner Bros.) put on a turntable spinning at 156 RPM ("Sean Connery").

Edie Sedgwick produced an album that presents a strange outlook on the world, one that will amuse ideologues and philosophers alike, at least for a few spins. In the end, however, both the band’s rough-around-the-edges bass-and-drum songs and its skewed view of reality don’t make First Reflections an album that’s good for much more than the casual and quickly fading intellectual curiosity it sparks.