Stateless / Matilda

Stateless
Matilda
(Ninja Tune)

This is a velvet-coated, wildly adventurous dance album that takes place in a conceptual universe, full of characters with names such as Ariel, The Devil, The Assassins and The Outsider. In that respect, it's like Labyrinth as reimagined by some microchip-brained digital genius.
As the introductory song 'Curtain Call' evolves from the sound of twinkling lights into a full on rush of reverse-synths, there's only one question that could be rationally on your mind: where the blazes can they go from here?
Everywhere it can, appears to be the answer. Singer Chris James has said that he wants people to "do the Pink Floyd thing" and listen to this through headphones from start to finish, and the gently drifting atmospherics, which occasionally burst into distorted visions of futuristic techno, certainly put your hi fi through its paces.
At its most mellow 'Matilda' recalls Antony and the Johnsons (such as on the tearful lullaby 'I'm On Fire'), but it's never too long before a band member flicks a switch and turns the composition on its head: 'Song For The Outsider' starts out not a million miles from 'Kid A' before it morphs into a classical string-led interlude, which then itself gets turned on the head by a menacing robot-stomp.
Whether you're after a Rubiks Cube of a record or merely an audio challenge that'll shake up the status quo, 'Matilda' delivers.