**Digitalis debut from Koenraad Ecker, one half of Opal Tapes' Lumisokea, highly recommended if you're into Vainio, Joachim Nordwall, The Haxan Cloak. Initial copies on transparent red wax** Belgium's Koenraad Ecker swiftly follows his 'Apophenia' LP as part of the Lumisokea duo for Opal Tapes with a personalised invitation to his shadowy solo zones for Digitalis. Inhabiting space between slow techno and electro-acoustic dimensions, 'Ill Fares The Land' surveys similar soundscapes to Mika Vainio and Joachim Nordwall's recent 'Monstrance' LP and Senking's drowned space. Bolstered by extruded cello strings and serrated bass pulses, the fourteen minute, two-part opener 'Oran' could be the expansive soundtrack to a brutal art-house horror flick, whilst 'Kurtz' and 'One-Eye' keen towards a sort of mittel European chamber-doom making subtle but integral use of resonant harmonics and traces of arcane melody laced with blackened bass. In the album's most concise and perhaps poignant moment, 'Decline' reminds us of The Haxan Cloak or Roly Porter's ominous portents, and finally 'Stuffed Men' closes with a display of quiet/loud elemental might comparable with Emptyset's best, imbued with extra space courtesy of Rashad Becker's typically sharp mastering treatment.

"Inhabiting space between slow techno and electro-acoustic dimensions, 'Ill Fares The Land' surveys similar soundscapes to Mika Vainio and Joachim Nordwall's recent 'Monstrance' LP and Senking's drowned space. Bolstered by extruded cello strings and serrated bass pulses, the fourteen minute, two-part opener 'Oran' could be the expansive soundtrack to a brutal art-house horror flick, whilst 'Kurtz' and 'One-Eye' keen towards a sort of mittel European chamber-doom making subtle but integral use of resonant harmonics and traces of arcane melody laced with blackened bass. In the album's most concise and perhaps poignant moment, 'Decline' reminds us of The Haxan Cloak or Roly Porter's ominous portents, and finally 'Stuffed Men' closes with a display of quiet/loud elemental might comparable with Emptyset's best, imbued with extra space courtesy of Rashad Becker's typically sharp mastering treatment." Boomkat