Finnish artist
Blamstrain has been sort of an unsung veteran of the IDM scene, having released his first album, Ensi, on
Merck in 2003, around the time the label also helped launch the careers of
Machinedrum,
Proem, and
Helios. While that album was in line with other post-
Autechre IDM artists, subsequent
Blamstrain releases, mainly on the artist's Erotus label, explored terrain closer to ambient and dub-techno.
For All the Dreamers In is significantly less glitchy than previous
Blamstrain releases, focusing more on modular and analog synth sounds. The tracks here also develop at a more relaxed pace, with several of them climbing toward and beyond the ten-minute mark. The addition of crowd noise and ambience further emphasizes the live, spontaneous nature of the recordings, even though they are studio-based. The album also seems far more dance-oriented than his previous work, touching on trance, electro-disco and tech-house, with melodic Detroit-esque "Before Now-Again" being a highlight. The albums ends far away from the dancefloor, with the rain-sprinkled ambience of "Lake, Storm..Sun" and 11-minute new age moonscape "Swish." The album is a pleasant journey, but overall, it's not astonishing or revelatory. [The CD version has three more tracks than the LP.] ~ Paul Simpson