IDM legend/recluse Darrel Fitton returns with his third full length, on the famous Skam imprint. And holy shit, is this one a winner!

Imagine a more melodic Autechre, with classical influences. Mechanical, crunchy beats over wickedly dark, thick ambience and mesmerizing, dramatic melodic riffs (often strings or piano). The contrasts he achieves between deeply human and coldly mechanical are just spellbinding. This stuff isn’t just “tragic” – this is the kind of music you imagine playing when the apocalypse comes, when everybody is dying of radiation poisoning in nuclear fallout, when someone’s memories are slowly being erased by a bad case of Alzheimer’s.

One of my favorites of 2004!

Favorites: Track 1 has become a personal favorites. Stunning!
Don’t miss Tracks 4, 9, 10 either.

- Captain Dee, March 2005

***1. Ultra ominous, tragic chimes sound over amorphous ambience and tight industrial glitch-hop beat. Then amazingly tragic, evocative strings kick in, later followed by distant, highly tweaked opera vox. Riveting! Highest Recommendations. (9:40)
*2. Pulsing tone, trippy toy-ish sounds. Then everything drops out, replaced by sick crunchy beat, rumbling bassline, windy ambience, skittering. Slow dramatic strings throughout. (5:23)
3. Dark distant melody over creepy ambience. Sad. No beat. (2:25)
**4. Hodgepodge, catchy beat. More creaking sounds... tied into the beat. Ethereal background ambience/“aahs” provides the melody. Perfect music for a vigil. (8:20)
*5. Bubbly, fucked up electronic melody… quiet didgeridoo in the back? The soundtrack to someone drowning, perhaps? (2:29)
6. Wistful, echoing electronic melody joined by clockwork beat. (3:48)
*7. Juxtaposition of buzzing and heavily mechanical vibe/beat over delicate/sad piano melody. (3:47)
8. Messy mix of fast, hard beat, robot-ish sounds, and electronic strings that wash in and out. Long ambient end (without beat). (5:40)
**9. Off-kilter ambience, slow but bounce-y beat trickles in. Piano, and tweaked-out vocal track join the fray. Amorphous, tight, dreamlike groove. Brilliant! (7:23)
**10. Swelling, poignant strings break in over howling ambience, beeping, buzzing, and infectious industrial beat. Beat drops out later. Ends at 7:26, then haunting hidden melody at 9:26. (11:43)