Bedouin Ascent aka Kingsuk Biswas remains one of the more enigmatic UK electronic music producers. Perhaps not known by many, but highly respected by those who have collected his work, from his debut 1992 release on Rising High up to the most recent on his own No Immortal label.

The drum machine programming on some of his tracks is amazing, verging on the unbelievable. This guy was programming beats on vintage Roland machines that out-bizarre the chopped up laptop compositions of many modern "IDM" producers. Yet there is structure to all his work...even if you struggle to detect it until the track you're listening to starts to fade out! Some of the work is very hard to mix, as finding the start and loop points of his rhythms can be very difficult.

His attention to melody and repetition is reminiscent in places of Steve Reich's minimal compositions. Patterns appear to move in and out of sync with the rhythm section, and harsh clangs and crashes juxtapose the sublime tuneful atmospherics. It's the kind of music that you can almost "zoom in and out" of - like a satellite photograph - either taking in the whole scene as it passes by, or focusing on the minute details.

Biswas is still producing and is running the No Immortal label (although so far it's only managed 2 releases in four years!!). In fact I managed to catch him doing a live set in a bizarre venue full of broken TVs and unconventional art in east London during 2004. It seemed only 4 or 5 of us had turned up to see him, so we stood in a row right in front of a cluttered table, while around us the Friday night drinking of the misfit patrons continued uninterrupted. He seemed a very genuine guy and mentioned that he has several albums worth of unreleased material. His set was great despite the odd and competitive environment.

For those starting out on the Bedouin Ascent sound, I'd recommend the first EP, "Reconnect The Thread", and the album "Music For Particles". These then lead comfortably on to his other works. His most recent release has a bit more of a jungle sound to it which could perhaps give the wrong impression at first, although probably half of it is actually more reminiscent of his earlier works.