Spherical Disrupted - 25 [Audiophob]

Put on the circuit as triple CD set via German imprint Audiophob on December 25th, 2k20 is "25", the latest extended album by Mirko Hentrich a.k.a. Spherical Disrupted celebrating his 25th anniversary release with an eleven track menu of new material as well as collaborations dubbed as "25 (Future)" whilst "25 (Past 1)" and "25 (Past 2)" provide a retrospective of previously released pieces, special studio versions as well as a plethora of remixes, cuts and versions Hentrich was invlvd in - either as Spherical Disrupted, solo or in projects like Experimentum Crucis. With a total of 32 tracks and an overall runtime of 225 minutes one cannot deal with each and every track in full on detail reviewwise but with tunes like the ghostly, gooey and hounded Dark Ambient meets IDM opening title "25" which somehow takes us back to dark, atmospheric pieces catered by acts like Future Sound Of London throughout the early 90s whilst the subsequent "Basalt", a collaboration with TC75 on vocals, fuses slow-motion EBM with a certain, well captivating NuBeat vibe. Following the concept of minerals and geologic composites "Quartzite" and "Granite" provide both beautifully scenic and, well..., spatial - Space Ambient / Deep Listening Music as well as classic soothing Ambient / ChillOut vibes before the 10 minutes long 'Yura Yura Remix' of the Spherical Disrupted / Darkrad collab named "Transneptunian Objects" rounds things off for the first CD with gnarly, slowly evolving, vantablack and nothing short of tectonic midrange synth drones and panoramic string build-ups as a foundation for ghostly, echoing whispers. On "25 (Past 1)" cuts likes "Accretion Disc *Terminal Mix" weigh in more brooding, yet strangely comforting Synth / Dark Ambient signals accompanied by intense, shrieking modulation sequences, the 2005-released "Ghost Of Jupiter *Nebula Mix" brings forth more of Spherical Disrupted's trademark Space Ambient / (Neo)Cosmic once accessible only to a selected audience due to being featured on a limited to 150 cassette tape compilation whereas "DTLF *Autismversion" caters a Deep Listening Music-oriented take which provides an interesting contrast to the more Rhythm Industrial-leaning variation of the same track also featured on this retrospective. Furthermore inspecting "25 (Past 2)" reveals tunes like Yipotash's "Overrun *RunStopRestauration" which can be described as a lo-fi variation of Ritual Rhythm Industrial, KiEw's "Zentrifuge *Inertia Mix", originally released back in 2004, once again harks back to deep, dark'ish and brooding 90s IDM / Electronica whilst Xabec's "No Disko *Transformed Completely" serves 11+ minutes of claustrophic, vantablack Ritual Ambient for summoning most evil demons and Mandelbrot's "Staring Holes Into Walls (Void.................................)" - yes, that is 33 fucking periods in the track title. We counted. - enters deeply solemn, ecclesiastical Drone Ambient territories paired with metallic rhythm signatures just to name a few. A highly recommended and well extensive trip into the darkest underground caverns of electronic music.