Portal is the third album from recording whiz Alexander Tucker and is his most ambitious to date. The range of material initially seems disappointingly uniform in tone, never really moving away from a mood of pre-dawn desolation done so well by groups such as A Silver Mt Zion. This initial response isn’t helped by a grandiose press release informing the prospective listener that if you don’t like it then ‘you are spiritually dead’. Thanks. However after multiple listens, subtle differentiations emerge that prove gently seductive.

‘Omnibaron’ is constructed from a mesmerising mix of picked acoustic guitars, strings and percussion that emerge and disappear back into walls of looped sound, while an cluster of guitars compete with a dispassionate complement of acoustic guitar and glockenspiel on ‘Bell Jars’. Tucker uses loops to great effect, the suggestions of organic birth and decay on ‘Energy For Dead Plants’ being particularly lovely. While it may take multiple listens to appreciate, Portal possesses a haunting quality all its own.

Oliver Downes