Loscil is back, after what seems like forever. It appears that i missed a couple of albums in there, having not really followed the artist since 2010's lovely Endless Falls. My loss, i suppose. Yours too if you take all of your musical advice from this site. In which case, i apologize for my laxness.

Monument Builders starts slowly, even for Loscil, with Drained Lake. A faint wash wavers for a minute before a sparse keyboard chimes in. Another minute in and a faint beat starts, eventually becoming a steady clicking driving the haze along. It's a very pleasant start, kind of easing the listener in to the Loscil experience.

Red Tide is a classic Loscil song: wavering tones, clicking beats, a general fuzziness to the proceedings. But at the end of this song the wavering drone and clicking beats stop and a simple keyboard bit drones, almost like a short horn loop. Lovely.

On the slow and reverbing Monument Builders, he brings in a slow deep horn, like a layer of French horn or something. The brass moans over a heartbeat throb and echoing layers of synths. This is really beautiful.

A martial beat comes in for Straw Dogs, the beat driving a wash of synths and a ringing metallic sound. There is an uneasiness and a certain cinematic quality to this piece that makes me think of a tense chase scene in some kind of thriller movie, where we watch as the hero avoids the enemy, just barely.

Deceiver pings like a slowed down song from his Submers album. He adds in a distorted voice aahing, or maybe a slowed down horn sample -- something that requires breath and is slowed down to a wail that is both mournful and plaintive. Keyboards plink, echoed, in the foreground above this mournful sound in a really lovely effect.

Anthropocene appears to be mostly made from those horn samples, long notes played slowly, mournfully, over a faint clicking drone. In a way, this approaches the feel of Boards of Canada in the way that the horn sounds echo.

And finally the record ends with Weeds, in which aahing voice samples pop here and there in short bursts as a deep bass sounds and something reverbs in the foreground.

Like any Loscil record, this one washes over with faint tones, subtle throbs that hint at beats, and relaxing layers of sound. I like it a lot and am glad that he is still making this kind of music.