a layered, complex and beautiful album, mezzotint takes 60 minutes to ease you through its 12 serene and sometimes disquieting ambient pieces (7 fully realised tracks and 5 nebulous interludes). Clean, simple tonal lines running through the tracks are underpinned by darkly rolling deeper registers; a gentle, obfuscatory middle layer creates just enough blurring in the sound for the ears to fill gaps with half-heard motifs and hinted themes. There's no conventional percussion, nor is there any need for it - tracks are propelled by a gentle but inexorable tidal shifts - this disc is a constantly-evolving pleasure to listen to.
It's my favourite album of 2006 by a long way, and I'm pleased that I managed to get through this needlessly florid write-up without using the word 'glacial'
