TAPES & TOPOGRAPHIES Vinyl & CDs

Review: Ambient explorer Tapes & Topographies (real name Todd Gauthreaux) tends not to talk too much about his work. Instead, he's content to simply serve up new albums and let the music do the talking. 'Microtones', his latest full-length, is another softly spun, exceedingly immersive affair in which enveloping, dream-like electronic textures, sustained drones and slowly unfurling chords wrap around effects-laden instrumentation (we can identify pedal steel, piano and strings). There are subtle nods to neo-classical, jazz and cinematic soundtracks, but this is grown up, headily emotional, entirely beat-free ambient music of the sort you'll want to get lost in time and again.