[M>O>S Recordings]

Rabih Beaini, better known as Morphosis, is the head of the impossibly but irresistibly erratic Morphine label and was responsible for one of my favorite releases of recent years, the moody, reverberations of Dark Myths of Phoenicia Part 2. Given that he also records more freeform music as Ra.H and began his public engagement with electronic music with his own radio show 20 years ago in his native Lebanon, it is no surprise that Beaini’s latest missive doesn’t follow a formula.

Indeed, when the title track starts up it could be a Villalobos track, as the listener is confronted with a cacophony of horns. The crucial difference though, is that these are blaring and droning, painting a scene where the sun beats down mercilessly on a boy herding goats through a scorched earth ravine. Suddenly, we’re transposed to another scene as Beaini trades a sonic artifact from his homeland for a lean, booming bass line. Sounding like Resse pumped up on steroids, heavy, almost claustrophobic claps complete the bad trip. Beaini doesn’t let the intensity levels drop on “Running Out” either. There, a repetitive squelchy riff builds into a wall of demented subsonics before the author decides to relent, using the same multi-layering approach and structural basis to sketch a warmer bleep sequence. If you like surprises rather than linear comfort, then Musafir is for you.