[adam]

The thing is, a description of the concepts (recordings of lions, motorcycles, etc) suggested to me that it was either:

a)Gimmicky. Ooooh, a motorcycle sample!

or

b)Mundane. People have been making albums out of original field recorded sounds for decades. Big deal.

It's neither of those things, because the execution is incredible. There's a meticulous attention to sonic detail that is uncommon and quite enchanting. Nothing is really shoehorned in, either, in the sense of "now let's wedge in such-and-such a sample". The sounds are beautifully recorded and processed in such a way that the uniqueness of their character really stands out.

The album comes with a DVD that shows him recording many of the source sounds and talking about the evolution of the album in a totally ego-less and unpretentious manner, which I watched first, and I think helped shape my reaction to the album.