What started out as a DJ mix with MadderModes tracks that hadn't been released over the past 15 years grew into a debut album.

The first full-length album of prolific British electronic maestros MadderModes - the eponymously-titled MadderModes - is a work of time, space and emotion-bending majesty.

Unfurling like a dream-state walk through foothills of an extraterrestrial, smoke-laced rainforest, “The Relevancy of Restricted Things” sets the stage for a polyrhythmic journey through hypnotic, undulating depth grooves, delicately sprinkled with simultaneously freaky and blissful samples.

A fusion of organic and synthetic sounds into something beyond and between the two is the thematic vertebrae of the album. That, and the expertly-considered, seemingly irregular (but conscious) placement of a hi-hat, a muted clap, kick, snare or a whole range of as yet unheard sounds here and there, quickly builds a relationship of trust in the listener that no element will be misplaced, over-used or underrepresented in the ride ahead.

Then it’s time for the surprises: the vocals, soaked in a perfect ratio of elation and mania in Light Works get us ready for an acceleration into late-night clubroom territory. Remnants of bright, long Detroit or Jersey synth bends colliding with dark electronic growls and just-discernible rolling sub-bass undercurrents rocket us into a sunset or sunrise on Mystical Lands.

Just when we’re tricked into bracing for warp-speed, we’re plunged underwater for a slow-motion dive into the bizarre world of Sinclair Borofsky, his distant trumpets from a fun nightmare marking the beginning of our cascade into the abyss of Tribe Test.

Once surrendered to eternity on the other side, we’re suddenly caught in an upward plume of dubby, new-dawn playfulness with Hereditary Language, showing us there are still reasons to dance in this strange world - but not for too long: The Man Behind The Curtain has other plans to kill us in Alizarin.

Luckily, the dancer is rescued by the undulating, flute-licked beauty of Red Tape carrying us to the strange safety of a place you don’t know but definitely like, before Deep Red ejects us into a stomping, free-jazzy atavism where some kind of post-human species is making love with itself. The Bonus Track soundtracks the birth of the result.

Taken together, this album perfectly reflects MadderModes’ prowess as both DJs and Producers - fusing together years of their collaborations and evolving experience as intimate crowd connoisseurs into a mosaic suited for both a dance floor or the floor of your living room.

Words by Dan Lo