Mark Van Hoen - Nightvision (2015)

Much has changed since Mark Van Hoen debuted his melancholic take on electronic music with the ambient leaning Locust project for R&S offshoot Apollo way back in 1994. The producer has tried his hand at all sorts of experimental styles since - noise, drone, industrial etc. - but his commitment to the mood-shifting abilities of music remains in tact. Nightvision is typically evocative, utilizing modular and analogue synthesizers to create soundscapes that variously touch on neo-classical, ambient, cold-wave, post-dubstep (the brilliant "Bring It Back") and thrillingly hard-to-define downtempo workouts (see "Kojiki"). Throughout, it's Van Hoen's immaculate compositional skills that shine through.