Monument Builders

Sound designer turned ambient explorer Scott Morgan is one of Kranky's longest-serving artists. He first appeared on the American label under his now familiar Loscil alias way back in 2001. Monument Builders is his eleventh solo full-length, and sees him effortlessly flitting between icy, slow-burning ambience, analogue soundtrack salvos (see the John Carpenter-ish "Red Tide", a bubbly blast of Cold War paranoia), cinematic tension-builders ("Straw Dogs"), throbbing, post-drone soundscapes ("Anthropocene"), and bittersweet mood pieces (the melancholic brilliance of "Weeds"). As you'd perhaps expect from a man whose day job involves scoring computer games, the album is hugely atmospheric and immersive.