Staying on top of
Jeff McIlwain's releases as
Lusine, L'usine, and Lusine Icl hasn't been terribly easy since his first late-'90s release, so here's a helpful compilation that binds the best from a number of releases into one package. This is as much a full-length as his other non-compilations; despite its generous running time, it was sequenced with an amount of care that works to everyone's advantage, since it flows easily while touching upon nearly all of
McIlwain's various approaches. He handles nearly every one of them with a graceful consistency, but he truly excels at the kind of lush, glowing serenity that oozes out of "Dr. Chinme" and "Lullaby" -- two tracks that, save for the emotions they conjure, have little in common. On opener "In Flight," an alluring ambient track on par with the darker moments from Kompakt's Pop Ambient series, he crafts a somber keyboard melody that seems to move through a loose semisolid gel. Most of what remains sticks to rhythmic home-listening techno, with crunching beat structures and off-kilter keyboard patterns that remain accessible; it's clear that he'd rather pull you in than baffle you with complexities. Though the cover of the sleeve depicts a hazy seaside spot, the environ this music is more suited for is a clean, desolate metropolis.