This is less cerebral than his later works but still very abstract. Some of the tracks make awesome use of the frequency spectrum and the end result is like nothing else. The experience can be compared to being stuck inside a massive industrial machine. It reminds me of journeying as a child to the lower decks of a ferry across the Irish sea. Claustraphobia of the narrow passageways coupled with physical vibrating sub-bass of the nearby engines and miscellaneous noises.

My take is that it's a hit and miss album, but the last track, 'Astronomical Guidepost', is just the moodiest, meanest Drexciya track around. A lot of Drexciya's work seems to be live jams, and for this track they were really on form.

Admittedly the tracks go on a bit with not a huge amount of variation, but they have the classic aphex sound to them. Being upwards of 13 years old you can't blame them from sounding a bit dated, but none of his peers sounded like this (did he even have any?). Gak1 has a wonderfully syncopated rhythm and Gak3 has a classic (but simple) haunting aphex melody.

Fennesz is contemporary electronic music of the highest calibre. Songs usually consist of skillfull application and manipulation of dense sonic textures with a genuine feel of the live, real-time. There is frequent use of controlled time-smearing which utterly disassembles original sound sources, but avoids a regimented feel. Both live performances I've seen (London QEH 2001, ICA 2003) were awesome.

'Fracture' also appears on the succour album. 'Tied' stands out a mile for me here. There's a temptation to describe it as evil but that would be wrong. It is totally uncompromising and dark with a commanding snare-like drum on beats 2 and 4 and full-on bass. Awesome.

Mark Van Hoen's project was initially responsible for ground-breaking dark and introspective electronic music. Later releases favour the darker examinations of love and relationships without lyrics (Truth is born of arguments), then with lyrics from guest artists (morning light, wrong).

From http://www.a-toi.com/locust :
Although a lot of people seem to think that he stays at home listening to tapes of puppies being tortured, Mark in fact goes out as much as anyone. "I realised that making music is a therapy for me. After working with Annie Williams (one of the vocalists on Morning Light), I could see that, in empathising with someone else, I was resolving my own inner feelings. This results in a warmer, more digestable music that doesn't simply project my paranoia, like my instrumental work tended to."