* PREORDER * CINDYTALK - Sunset And Forever 2LP

* PREORDER * expected to arrive mid-late Feb

Cindytalk has remained a majestic proposition over the decades, one marked by a continued process of disintegration and regeneration. Change has been a constant, as has been the presence of the Scottish musician Cinder, who has fronted the project since the early '80s. Early Cindytalk embraced a dark theatricality of post-punk dissonance and abject rock deconstruction that coupled industrial dirges with Cinder's beautific vocals, these same vocals that were once plied to the earliest This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins recordings, forever binding Cinder to 4AD. But even on those albums, Cinder pushed the band to embrace the studio as a tool for abstraction of sodden drones and decayed textures.

By early aughts, Cinder reimagined Cindytalk through the granular processes of digitalia with a handful of equally celebrated works of glitch-born expressionism for Editions Mego. Cinder explains that "those elements were growing roots under our sound… started to organically change the shape of what we were doing. The rock music was in retreat and electro-acoustic abstractions were becoming apparent. To further explore those and new territories. S+F is intrinsically connected to what came before."

S+F is a labyrinthine opus, one that returns to the themes of the sacred and profane that have rippled through their recordings. Opening track "Embers of Last Leaves" is a haunted piece of undulated, cyclical tones that entwine into a sorrowful chorale with Cinder's voice. Thumps of electronic drum kicks and bass drops dot the apocalyptic menace of "Tower of the Sun" but serve not as a rhythmic grid, but as painterly noises that further disrupt and disturb the machined dissonance. A cinematic radioluminescence blooms from the tempered electronics within "For Those Eyes, Shadows Of Flowers." The finale "I See Her in Everywhere" bookends the opening number with a seemingly human chorus build from electronic tones cast in cathedral reverence.