Berlin-based Singaporean producer Lee Xhin unleashes his first full-length on Stroboscopic Artefacts with Sword, an album that aims to fuse the circuit-bending aesthetics of late-90s IDM with the future-industrial techno of his present environs. While the by-day sound designer already has a pair of albums and several twelves to his credit, Sword is essentially the big stage debut for Xhin, replete with prominent placement on digital vendor sites, promotional podcasts and elevated expectations amongst the arbiters and trainspotters of electronic musicianship.

It’s clear from the outset that Xhin’s production style is indebted to the vanguard who’ve successfully bridged the gap between cerebral calisthenics and primal pulsations (see Monolake, Drexciya) and is particularly deferential to Aphex Twin, as exemplified on the skillfully whirled mayhem of ‘Fox and Wolves’ and (more tediously) on the pins-and-needles wind-up toy that is ‘Insides.’ Apart from the shimmering dark ambience of closer ‘This Is What You Drew While You Were Half Asleep’ (which itself is almost paint-by-numbers from the Selected Ambient Works II template) and the baroque twee of “Wood,” Swords offers a slew of tracks for the mixologist’s arsenal, readymade for DJ sets from the likes of Surgeon, Rob Hall and others trading in the more cavernous corners of the dancehall.

The techno that carries the bulk of Sword’s mass careens from paranoid DSP maximalism (the excellent ‘You Against Yourself’) to cold, calculated space (‘Foreshadowed’), and is at its best when oscillating between the two. Such is the case on the album centerpiece ‘Teeth,’ which, working off an SND-inspired riff over rumbling percussion, mutates into a dub chamber of tweaked out, melodic synths before ultimately returning full circle.

Although the framework holding everything together is a bit feeble in places – keeping the album a shade below the sum of its constituent parts – there’s plenty enough on display to ensure that Xhin needn’t give up his night job anytime soon. And should you find yourself looking for a good brain rinse, Sword proves to be more than up to the task.