Just who are the "agents of time" in the title of Mathew Jonson's debut solo album? Is it a reference to futurism, or to the here and now? Is it us, are we them? Whatever the case, it's a suitably open-ended name for a record that presents a side of Mathew Jonson you've never heard before. He's been a major figure on the scene almost since the moment he emerged on Itiswhatitis in 2001, with hotly tipped singles for Perlon and Minus quickly raising his profile. Since then, he's turned out 20-odd singles and EPs, plus remixes for the Chemical Brothers, Moby, Swayzak and even Nelly Furtado. Add to that another nine singles and two albums with Cobblestone Jazz, plus two more EPs with Midnight Operator (Jonson's duo with his brother Nathan Jonson, aka Hrdvsion) and the Modern Deep Left Quartet. He keeps busy. On his own, as a member of Cobblestone Jazz, and as a co-founder of the Wagon Repair label, Jonson has continually pushed and prodded electronic dance music's familiar forms into more distinctive shapes, without ever losing focus on the dancefloor. But the visceral, psychoactive thrills of his biggest tracks- 2004's “Decompression," "Return of the Zombie Bikers" - have sometimes eclipsed the deeper side of Jonson's music. Agents of Time remedies that, building upon his signature sound by veering into slower, more expansive, more contemplative territory. This album finds Jonson sounding intensely focused, even as he displays more range than ever before.