This album is a soundscape rather than an album.
It starts off small and delicate and quiet and it ends up a quiet and subtly impressive and immersive giant within your head.
‘Machines Of Grace’ is the perfect starter, all bleeps, blips and blobs, underlined and subtly carried by deep dark keyboard and synth bass lines that both soothe and threaten you all at the same time.
So, while it is peaceful music, it very much makes you think at the same time. In the inner sleeve, Mr Neu Gestalt himself, Les Scott, recalls an article that compared music making with bondage. Well, if Mr Scott was sweating in leather and chains and suchlike whilst ‘Controlled Substances’ was (no pun intended) coming together, he sounds like he was having the time of his life.
This album may be about to explode one minute (‘Kintsugi’) or gently mourning some lost romance the next (‘Watched By A Silent Moon’) but it always has you by the hand and by the mind. It creates a world of gentle synths and atmospheres, even if you also have a slight tinge of suspicion and a sense of suspense.
It is not an album you can break down into easily digestible chunks but is best heard as a whole for the whole, euphoric experience.