From the cover shots of a bleak disused warehouse you might expect this to be an album of dark, downtempo electronica but, instead, the sound has a brighter texture which has more in common with cool late night Jazz than heavy post-industrial IDM.
It is the debut full length work of Jaime Irles and Germán Escandell, a Spanish duo from Ibiza who joined forces as students in 2009 while studying in Barcelona.
The fractured percussive beats often have echoes of Squarepusher without having quite the same urgency. In fact, most of the tracks have a spiralling, unhurried quality with subdued rhythms and soft synth melodies creating an elegant ambient mood.
A track like Mechanical Sunset (featuring Andrey G) is typical of their style; a piano based melody over a shimmering backdrop that would work as an effective score for tense, reflective scenes in a psychological thriller.
The menacing robotic voice on Herz Aoen creates slightly more tension but the reluctance to introduce a heaver bass lines means that any drama is understated.
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Tracks like Gathering Of The Argonauts and Science continue the ambient drift where the ornate detail lacks sufficient momentum to suck you in completely.
The album features seven of the duo's own tracks and a further six given the remix treatment (one by Irles himself). These include two versions of Helium-3 although, curiously, the original of this track is not deemed worthy of inclusion.
These bonus tracks supply a welcome shift of direction with their more splintered, bass-driven dynamics. The final two remixes of Helium-3 and Herz Aoen by zmethylBulberol and Access To Araska respectively are the highlights, containing bursts of frenetic energy lacking in the fluid but overly-restrained originals.
This album falls below high standard set by other releases on the Tympanik label but is more than redeemed by the excellence of the remixes.
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