Gudrun Gut und Joachim Irmler – 500m

On 500m’s cover, the album’s creators introduce themselves via cartoon speech bubbles, though we’d hazard that anyone tempted by the record will be familiar with both already – if not by name alone, then through their respective contributions to German electronic music over the past several decades. On the left, progressive electronic artist Gudrun Gut; on the right, Hans-Joachim Irmler, a founding member of Faust – together, a collaboration whose music sounds beamed in from another time altogether.

Whether that time is past or future is a whole other riddle. Krautrock is the obvious historical touchstone: together, the titles of Mandarine and Traum pay collective tribute to compatriots Tangerine Dream, while Irmler’s organ drones are a familiar constant. But 500m is anything but retro, with Gut chopping the duo’s long-form improvisations into a lightly avant-garde collage full of echoes, loops and soft static, all contributing to a hypnotic and forward-thinking end result. [Chris Buckle]