This self-titled debut from Bristol-based project Emptyset opens with delicious, throbbing sub-bass that quickly overrides your senses and effectively sets the tone for the rest of the album. Although easily bracketed under ‘minimal techno,’ influences from a number of dance styles can be heard throughout, most notably the crushing bass of UK dance music’s current number one export, dubstep. Like dubstep act Vex’d (also originally from Bristol), Emptyset utilises high-end sound design to stand out from the crowd, ensuring appeal for both IDM fans and more mainstream dance audiences.

This attention to detail in sound design is spectacular, particularly when heard through high-end headphones or speakers capable of reproducing nuances. Snare drums transform into rhythmic white noise, and what I assume started life as a synth becomes so distorted and twisted that it is hard to determine the sound source. Most of the sounds contain this sense of mystery and the mystical, seeming to originate from anything or anywhere. “Beyond” features electric hums and computer beeps that are tossed around an echo chamber, emerging as an almost tribal, thudding drum motif. Halfway through “Completely Gone” what sounds like a rubbed wine glass distorts and opens up, beautifully revealing the inflections of the harmonic series. “Gate 2“ creates an ostinato out of two futuristic ringtones a minor second apart, onto which reversed snares and white noise are delicately placed.

These beautifully crafted, almost untraceable sounds are layered sparingly to create a futuristic and other-worldly sonic landscape that holds strong throughout. Yet, paradoxically, the painstakingly perfected sounds that animate this seamless journey are re-used so often that by the end you can’t help feeling slightly bored and partly zombified. When the motifs are stripped back, then thrown back in, transformed, distorted, placed on and then just behind the beat it is electrifying. Yet this happens all too rarely, and although doing so might risk the overall sonic vision of the album, more experimentation with textures could have given this work the edge it needs.

Although sounds are layered with the rhythmic precision of a metronome, the sounds closest to conventional drums are placed low in the mix with a crisp attack and zero delay. Furthermore, all tracks have almost identical, surprisingly downbeat tempos. Like most minimalist music, if you wanted to dance to this you would need a keen ear for internal rhythms or some highly elliptical dance moves. In fact, Emptyset can’t really decide if it’s aiming at a dancing or listening audience. It sits uncomfortably in-between and maybe that – its indecision – is what makes it so interesting.