Xavier Dubois is a young Belgian experimental musician whose second CDR “Ostium” channels what is in many ways a very traditional drone sound through the mode of contemporary guitar/laptop improvisation. The disc’s slow beginning is telling, this is a release that is cautious in both its immediate sound and conceptual approach. The aptly named first track “Lava” creates an impenetrable wall of deep carnivorous drones, which becomes all the more densely affecting at the halfway point when the emergence of looping electronics signals the slide in the rest of the disc to a more playful glitchy sound. The final track “Clay” is the most effective fusion of these two sides. Building on high pitched ghostly echoes, low-end threatens to overwhelm the piece before it fades out. Each piece seems careful and deliberate, and while this kind of slightly too harsh to be ambient, slightly too immersive/non-confrontational to be noise, slightly too refined/laptopped to be free improvisation, is a dime-a-dozen these days, Dubois has enough of an idea of what he is doing to be well worth seeking out. 7/10 -- Tim Gentles (11 June, 2009)