IGLOOGHOST Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Irish producer Iglooghost continues to redefine electronic music with a conceptually rich and sonically dense third album. Drawing from the desolate landscapes of a coastal UK town overrun by primordial detritus, the record fuses UK garage, coldwave, drill and more into a visceral, cinematic experience. Created while squatting in a Kent coast garage near a sewage plant, Iglooghost's surroundings heavily influenced the album's dark, aquatic tone. Blending relentless percussion with eerie melodies, the album unfolds like a near-future sci-fi soundtrack. Tracks like 'Germ Chrism' deliver pummeling trap-meets-IDM chaos, while slower cuts like 'Spawn01' evoke the hushed intimacy of early Portishead. Iglooghost's vocals take center stage, ranging from snarling hooks to delicate whispers, imbuing the music with a surreal humanity. Thematically cohesive yet wildly experimental, the album's soundscapes mimic waterlogged radio transmissions, stuffed with textures, rhythms and cinematic interludes. Despite its grim undertones, a cartoonish, surreal charm runs throughout, melding genres and abstract storytelling into relentless, goosebump-inducing club music. This record reaffirms Iglooghost's mastery of world-building and his ability to craft a vivid, otherworldly atmosphere from the interplay of sound and narrative.

Review: Dorset laptop head Iglooghost, AKA Seamus Malliagh, certainly knows how to paint a vivid picture - aurally and visually. 2017's startlingly original debut, Neo Wax Bloom, was like stepping through a vortex into another world entirely. A rich and deep universe that felt as though it had been there for aeons, waiting for us to stumble on a branch in the forest and fall headfirst through the wardrobe.

Lei Line Eon extends that realm significantly, building on past musical frameworks to deliver something that is at once bolder and bigger, but calmer and more serene. As though we have done with the immediately overwhelming experience of being taken somewhere Definitely Not Of This Plane, and found ourselves on a mountain side taking in this new place from a much broader perspective. Comparisons to Boards of Canada still apply, but with this latest Iglooghost reaffirms he's really all about the originality.