M00M (JACK HERTZ AND CHRISTIAN FIESEL)

Both Jack Hertz and Christian Fiesel are prolific experimental electronic artists in their own solo works with multiple releases every year, but their occasional collaborations together have resulted in some very special music, with the mellow prog- electronic ambiance of 2016's `Fast Rails' being particularly memorable. The two are at it again here in a very different manner, with m00m being the name given to a project inspired by their love for Moog synthesizers and Krautrock music. It's a vinyl- length collection of ten schizophrenic and feverish electronic distortions and trippy sound collages, mostly twisted into short bursts with some prog-electronic arrangements and subtle ambient touches as well.

`For a Snowflake' makes for an intangible, gargling and bubbling electronic opener. `Klick und Kluck' offers skittering looping programming over gentle ambient synth washes, `Walking in the Shade of Giants' is a drowsy electronic trickle laced with chiming unease, and `4 Fat Guys in a VW Bug' is a rough jangle of Heldon-like scuzzy and serrated electronic manipulation. The dreamy electronics of `Run Aground' take a calmer meditative hold, and the relentless `Stranger on Second Thought' pulses with a near industrial-like imposing machine coldness looming over fizzy colourful eruptions.

The menacing `A Box of Marbles' reverberates with gurgling electronic bleedings as flighty shuffling slivers blissfully rise around to bring light, and the Harmonia-like `Scavenging for Trouble' is wistful and life-affirming with its shimmering cooing caresses. Reflective and achingly beautiful, `Every Tuesday Morning' opens as a submerged crystalline ambient drone that lifts to life with slinking pulsing programming and light symphonic Mellotron-flecked touches carefully infiltrating, and `No More Clouds' closes with twitching n' glitching machine tantrums over an unceasing pattering of low-key stalking beats that almost flirt with dance/trance touches.

Get into the guts of the album and it takes a very disorientating, mesmerizing hold with its mix of edgier trippy dazes, kaleidoscopic dreamscape atmospheres and embracing ambiance. It proves to be a seductive and colourful Krautrock-modelled prog-electronic work, so let's hope for more team-ups between Fiesel and Hertz in the near future, especially in regards to this new m00m project, as there's so many vibrant ideas emerging and already on display on this hypnotic debut.

Four stars.