- James Holden seems frustrated. Perhaps also dissatisfied. It’s one of the first things one will notice on the respected UK electronic producer’s second album – the first in seven years – titled, “The Inheritors”.

After a few days of listening to the record, I wondered if perhaps if I was reading to deeply into several implicit indicators. But this frustrated murmur is made clear in several ways – first off, the song titles – ‘some respite’, ‘self-playing schmaltz’, ‘gone feral’, ‘the caterpillar’s intervention’ – digs at the usual suspects. Oneself, the music industry, and the mindless and greedy consumption of art and thought in general. This appears in other ways, in the titles ‘Delabole’ and ‘Blackpool late eighties’, digs at nowhere towns and once beautiful, now polluted and strange urbanised tourist-trap locations, scattered across Britain.

Does this guy tour? I wonder what he’d do in his show… The immediate image of a producer, forlorn gaze directed downwards at a crammed desk of electronics seem likely, despite the equipment being used to create these fascinating psychologically exploratory accompaniments. Does James Holden sample his acoustic sources live? I’m not sure these questions are all that interesting when applied to electronic music in 2013, but what else do you ask – really? These are all questions that seem to be, even if at the fringe – explored here.

On a purely aesthetic level, ‘The Inheritors’ is a beautiful body of work, the aural equivalent of peaches and cream. If you didn’t take to the previous critical analysis, you could listen to ‘The Inheritors’ purely based on the anatomical aspects. At the heart of it, the album explores some rotten and unattractive concepts, although it still just manages to seem like a statement. Holden, like many others is searching for what seems impossible to express. Releasing an album and giving it a thought-provoking title somehow doesn’t seem enough, not just for James Holden, but for everyone else. It’s an exercise of retraining the collective attention span of the majority of arts consumers or fans, worldwide. At eighty minutes, the length of the record is one of a few classic strategies employed to seemingly address this. Best enjoyed on your own, and perhaps sedated to some degree.

A more straightforward reading of ‘The Inheritors’ might be – a great and introspective follow up from a producer lassoed into the category of IDM. The textures are noteworthy, managing an effortless surprise yet being exactly where you’d want them too be. 000100101’s, an array of spasmodic trumpet, springy slide guitars and various murmurings and shufflings are sprinkled throughout the eighty-odd minutes. The low end and bass elements conjure primitive warmth.

In conclusion, after listening to this record all day for the past few days, it’s still difficult to pin down – I don’t feel like I know it, I definitely haven’t decoded it. There are still plenty of questions I am waiting to have answered. I think that is rare mark of a brilliant work.

- Makeda Zucco