While the electric noir and mind-expanding rituals of Nordmann and MDCIII exude nocturnal misconduct and turbulent grooves, Mattias De Craene walks a far more contemplative route with his solo project, looking for a personal and more introvert sound on the cusp between minimalism and melancholic meditation, focusing on the saxophone as an inner sound box.

De Craene works with loops and effects, but the building blocks of his music – both the long, ethereal melodies and the indefinable sounds – are created exclusively with the saxophone. The instrument is not just an extension of the musician, but a sound generator that brings together lushness and cinematic repetition, a siren that seduces the listener.

The result sounds fluent and free and is permeated by a Northern expanse that is unpredictably intoxicating. There are similarities with the worlds of Nils Frahm and Colin Stetson, but De Craene uses a language that is entirely his own and in which tender longing and the tumult of a wilderness come together.