Distance Research

Composed entirely on vintage analog electronic instruments and rendered directly to tape for a vivid and robust sound, this album has to be considered something of a modern classic of electronic music. “The Cold Wave” sounds like something Berlin would have killed to have as a backing track on its Pleasure Victim record, and “Omni” could easily be included in any film version of Neuromancer: Hovering, bass-y synth fields glisten with streaking flashes of sound as a dense, pulsing low-end rhythm really captures what it must be like to be Case running the net. “Prismatic Spring,” with its urgent Morton Subotnick circa Silver Apples of the Moon-era textures and microtonal bursts, is truly otherworldly. “Lake of Mercury,” meanwhile, has a Popol Vuh-esque glimmer and occasional swirls of rhythmic decay, creating an utterly transportive effect.