The Field - From Here We Go Sublime

Is this the sort of record you give to someone who professes to hate techno, or is it exactly the kind of record they would hate? Dunno. But I love it. The simple drum patterns, the micro-snatches of pop songs you can't quite recognise, chopped up and then streched across the airy synth dronescape like so many deliquesent clocks. "Kappsta", which was on Kompakt's Pop Ambient 2007 collection, is eerily gorgeous, a balletic glide through the upper atmosphere of some billowing gas giant, and is a good place to hear the basic trick in action, which involves endlessly delaying the chord changes so that when they come they're sudden rays of sunlight. "Everyday" is monstrous, building (or should that be tunnelling?) into a furious chant.

It's true that the record shares more than a little DNA with trance. But then, trance never had this monumental and geometric beauty before, constructed of interlocking planes of sound.

Plus, "On The Ice" samples Kate Bush, so it must be good, right?