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If you've seen Mills' graphic designs (on his own and many other's CD packaging, for instance), you'll recognize their similarity to his cut-and-paste soundwork... grungy collages which mix-and-match dozens of sources into an oddly coherent jumble. Brian Eno, Roger Eno, Bill Laswell, Robin Guthrie, Michael Brook and even U2's The Edge are only some of the stellar donators whose contributions have been assimilated into Mills' own audio-pastiche.
Concentric ripples spread across a sea of faint static as Red Scatter eventually spreads into beatier territories, adopting a buzzingly serpentine bassline and cymbal-ic syncopation.
Like an unfolding tapestry of moving sound-images, Ice In The Sleeve continually reforms itself in gorgeous slow-motion, covering an especially wide range of styles and moods. Soft guitar jangles and bird-like effects spaciously drift over Stone's Eggs (14:34), a soothingly balmy pastoral which turns more islandic as a dubby bass traipses in.
Bleak orchestral overtones waft in tattered gray curtains over the atmospheric gloom of Blood is Climbing; this is the kind of cinematic dreariness that one can truly enjoy being engulfed by. The vibrantly pounding groove of Rain In Our Room is sprinkled intermittently with outbursts of altered guitar screeches, chaotic vocal samples and other hissy intrusions. Wispy murk hovers throughout How Safe Is Deep?, irradiated by machinelike resonance. Making it sort of a space/ambient ballad, David Sylvian's whispery vocals blend surprisingly well with the amorphous sound ooze.
A dense miasma churns in the subterranean flightpath of Underground Kite, which begins to clear somewhat when a electronic bass riff, echoing percussion, eerily keening tones (and later, buried guitar theatrics) begin to seep in. The piece captures a stunning blend of shapeless ambiance and subtle e-rhythmic power.
More sonic spatterings come and go in Her 200 Bones (6:54) before it settles on a predominant vibe, adorned with snifflingly organic accompaniment and other random generations, then mellowing toward its closure.
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