AN is a prefigurative IDM suite where vulnerable imperfection and analog experimentation converge into a quietly authoritative, future-facing work that feels less like homage and more like the next chapter of electronic music unfolding in real time.
Prefigurative IDM, quietly authoritative
With the inclusion of vulnerable imperfection, chance, disorder, and an intention to allow the emergence of what is over what should be, we are given the musical palette for Man as Islands’ latest release, AN. The amalgam resulting from such intent presents as a futurist discourse in seminal IDM prototypes—music that feels less archival than prefigurative, gesturing toward the next few centuries rather than nostalgically circling the last. Melodies beautify the musical elements while analogue percussion and filtered textures prescribe experimentation through cerebral time changes and oceanic coloration. Tones of mid-period classic Warp appear, fracture, and disappear as evolutionary signatures and symbols, leaving residue rather than homage. Nods reminiscent—to me—of Plaid and melodious early Aphex Twin are used loosely here, as reference points that must be held lightly, lest they limit the listener’s own experience.
Track-wise, “Haikei” operates as an introductory piece: a first-movement symbolism announcing the opening credits of a mature suite with panache, restraint, and accrued wisdom. “Repeats / Rate” demonstrates an intelligence of programming and a deep comprehension of form, delivering a breathtaking movement through the adulthood of contemporary 2026 electronics. Proper. “Saami” is neo-classical in composition, yet fractures, collapses, and glitches into archetypal modernist aesthetics—music to live for, to inhabit, to replay compulsively. “Pulsar” delivers melody and timing that feels like lost Plaidesque knowledge, shining brightly for it. Undoubtedly a standout: anthemic yet humble, the little way of erudite wisdom personified in code. Stunning, and quietly authoritative.
Imperfection shapes the future sound ::
“Gradual Process” unfolds as a lunar landing set to digitized coordinates. As it takes one giant step, it also leaps for electronic music as a whole, reframing scale and intention. “Finite Sequence” actions a taut electro break alongside sensitive toy-box tonality, crisp analogue claps, and blips, creating a childlike yet fearsome, effervescent groove that resists nostalgia while embracing play. “One Armed Woman” channels big, bold, blistering synth-muzak—a Glassian epic rendered in purpulous binary, unapologetically physical. Automaton pencils its outlines with bold, arpeggiating colors spanning the spectrum, from white to black via silver and grey. Fat synth modulations undulate and fragment into vast reverbs of emptiness, proceeding steadily toward their own dissolution, decay, and elegant collapse.
As an outro, “Étude” lilts gently: tender piano, solo, placing the artist in real time with real heart on display, appealing directly to the realness at the core of each listener. Remixes from Anderdog, Morakh, and Ambidextrous introduce a second palette—a parallel wave of styles that reframes the album’s tonality, extending rather than diluting its intent, and completing the trajectory traced by the preceding material.
At the end of these travels, with AN as a musical erstwhile friend, I arrive in a space where I recognize that nothing is missing. The realisation that experience itself is whole, resolved, and quietly overwhelming. If an artist can leave a listener with such a sensation, they should sleep well at night. But artists don’t, do they? They crave what’s next. One hopes, then, that Man as Island can at least rest here awhile, safe in the knowledge that this latest album is—by any meaningful measure—faultless, complete, and already quietly enduring. For me, I usually enjoy like, or love music. Here, I am left gifted by a work. Left a fan of the artist. What a great day.
AN is available Local Gods. [Bandcamp]
