The future arrives in the form of Kuedo's hugely anticipated debut album. Since quietly disbanding the Vex'd vehicle he formerly operated with Roly Porter (whose solo debut LP also landed recently), he's been moving towards a slower, ornately detailed sound with his Kuedo project. But he's now re-emerged with a stripped down and luxurious variant on 'Severant', clearly referencing Chicagoan Footwork and 808-driven Coke and Road Rap, with strong traces of Vangelis-style synth opulence. To be fair it's a simple enough formula, but executed to often stunning standards. Compared with his previous records, there's a huge amount of space inside 'Severant', evoking brutalist megastructures and sci-fi fantasy architecture, a sort of dreamy hyperspace allowing the listener to indulge in their own personal fantasies, and we gather that's kinda the intention; says Jamie "As reality shapes imagination and escapism affects choices in the real world, there is a strange relational loop between the two and the space in between the two." Suspended in this interzone of whirring 808 mechanics and arcing, glass synth superhighways is a pretty lush place to be, and made all that more immersive by the sheer articulation of his sound design, from the crisp snap of his snare rolls to the billowing bass pollutants and phthalocyanine synth hues. It's a deeply romantic album, utterly in love with the machine/human interface and imbued with a futurist sincerity which really shouldn't be ignored by any of you. Massive recommendation if you're into Araabmuzik or Machinedrum - or generally good electronic music.