This relatively short CD-R is the first document to arrive from one-man ensemble Ink Puddle Compound after his successful debut album Tantrum Seas and Dust Lanes (Camera Obscura). Just like on the debut we?re served an interesting blend of experimental electronica and finely textured folk-pop.

Brandon Siscoe?s dreamy sound world and heavily phased vocals is rather difficult to describe as it surely leans towards the darker side of things but at the same time I am somewhat tempted to place this under the minimal pop moniker. To some degree I guess these seductive dripping drones, hazy pieces of melancholia and fractured soundscapes have something in common with bands like Hood, Piano Magic, Disco Inferno and Bark Psychosis but there?s also something distinctly darker, if not even despairing. This EP clocks in at just over 17 minutes and if this one is any indicator of the qualities of the upcoming album there?s no doubt I?ll need that one as well. 7/10 -- Mats Gustafsson (17 June, 2005)