AnD: cosmic microwave background

Having honed a clear and uncompromising sound, which has been flexed across all manner of tempos, AnD return to Electric Deluxe with their first full body of work: a sonic contemplation of the cosmos, woven with all their industrial tropes intact. The venomous hats and cavernous rumblings on "Power Spectrum," the caustic squeals of "Acoustic Oscillations" and the anxious pistons in "Gravitational Waves," for example, should instantly resonate with fans of the duo's wanton dancefloor works. But another cataclysmic compilation this is not. Cosmic Microwave Background is a far more composed and calculated affair, which sees the AnD sound assiduously recast into album format. The analog bleeps of "Particle" and grainy textures in "The Epoch of Recombination" are some of the fluctuations that temper AnD's debut album into a solid listening experience, meanwhile exposing some of the pair's fluid and intuitive working process -- with themselves as much as with their machines. Juxtaposing production precision with more freeform composition, Cosmic Microwave Background as an opus is as intriguing and unexpected in its entirety as its individual parts. Not that the album is quite so black and white. There are anomalies such as "Non-Sky Signal Noise" which tread the velveteen grey area in between, with truly rewarding results. On Cosmic Microwave Background AnD have found their door between worlds, and flung it wide open. The sleeve artwork has been created from a series of paintings by AnD themselves, reinterpreted here by EDLX's own in-house designer Jan Willem van de Baan into a set of industrial-evoking pieces inspired by the sound and aesthetics of the album.