Lee Bannon – Pattern of Excel

Turns out this’ll be the last album from the artist formerly known as Lee Bannon; from now on he’ll be working under the name “¬ b”, a characteristic move from a producer whose most persistent trait has been perpetual self-reinvention. At present, ambience is in and jungle is out, the dark atmospherics that haunted the edges of Alternate/Endings now taking centre stage in the form of solemn, largely beatless soundscapes.

Leaning heavy on the digital reverb, Bannon paints disconcerting, evocative scenes seemingly frozen in time. Trees rustling in the background, SDM brings to mind an eerie roadside at dusk, while Aga’s jaggy sci-fi synth and post-rock grandiose evoke the twirling wreckage of an abandoned space station. Disneµ Girls is especially intriguing, a pretty, pastoral tune that sounds so clinical and vacuous it’s uncanny – like a computer’s attempt to simulate an “ideal” summer memory. Not all are keepers but Bannon’s strange, ceaseless ideas are fascinating. [Andrew Gordon]