Conelrad’s debut album, Function Creep, is the result of learning one’s craft with the tools you have available, rather than purchasing more tools in the hope that you’ll suddenly become a really good musician. Thus, Function Creep is a blissed out but post-apocalyptic soundtrack derived from computing machinery and guitar.

In many respects it borrows from the musical heritage that starts at shoegaze and delivers through the modern electronica of Boards of Canada and M83. Where it differs, and betters it, is that it jettisons the annoying noise-scapes and atonality that resulted when this evolution mutated through the clever-clever intelligent dance music brigade. It may well end up in my top 10 albums of 2007.

Sarcophagus is the majestic penultimate but conceptually concluding track, full of long distant chords, shimmering guitar work and burbling basslines, driven slowly by solemn drumbeats.

Free Download: Conelrad: Function Creep