an incomplete thought: melody is an expedient to effect emotion in a listener, kinda like the plot in a movie, right? so melody doesn't seem to be absolutely necessary for a piece of music to be effective, at least not the kind of tacked-down, immediately obvious melody that seems to be missing from much of elseq 1-5, as long as the music can be compelling in some other way (in rhythm, atmosphere, etc). there's glimmers of melody in each track, to be sure (latter half of 13x0 step as a prime example of what I mean here), but it's very elusive, kind of slipping in and out, and perhaps not the central focus.