Darkness Darkness’s debut album, Animation, is a richly satisfying exploration of extended deep cuts and machine-soul fragments, living up to every bit of its early promise. Issued by the mysterious imprint A Visiting Link as their first full-length vinyl release, it arrives in the form of an eight-track LP that showcases a range of oddball downtempo electronics — an ideal fit for anyone drawn to Actress, Andy Stott, Purelink, False Aralia, West Mineral, or 3XL.

Comparable in spirit to classic works by The Connection Machine or Actress, the album’s immersive flow runs from start to finish. Two ten-minute-plus compositions anchor the set: the stuttering, cavernous techno dub of the title cut and the febrile dream sequence of ‘Beauty of the World’. They’re complemented by shorter, more abstract pieces such as the choral pad play on ‘Exp Sample’, the lustrous harmonics of ‘Smile’, and the glowingly somnambulant techno-tronics of ‘Empresszzzz’. Written and produced by Darkness Darkness at Magnetic Dress and Dedicated Computer Realm, Animation forges a hypnotic path through spacious sound design and reflects an artist with a keen ear for detail — highly recommended for those in search of deeper musical frontiers.