Moon Diagrams: Lifetime of Love review – undulating soundscapes for an anxious world

With stress, anxiety and memes taking up ever more of our valuable mental real estate, it is little wonder that the visualisations, mantras and brain-tickling sounds offered by mindfulness and ASMR videos have gone mainstream in recent years. This debut solo album from Deerhunter drummer and co-founder Moses Archuleta – created in a period of turmoil and rediscovery, following the breakdown of his marriage – has much the same effect as listening to crackling static or laboriously chewing a grape.

In it, he seamlessly moulds techno, samples that float in and out of reach like leaves in a lake, and the odd art-pop flourish into soundscapes that undulate with the sense of powering down. Opener Playground hums with the reverberations of a church choir, while Nightmoves pulls you into its gelatinous minimalism, and Blue Ring offers 11 minutes of gentle yet highly textured experimentation with a Cluster/Eno riff and a swelling, gong bath-like close. Magic Killer boasts dark, Neon Indian-style keys, while closing track End of Heartache provides kitsch yet ambient dance-pop, slowly ushering you out of Archuleta’s meditative zone, blood pressure wonderfully stable.