The Swiss electronic music pioneers’ 13th album and first since 2009 retools their influential, experimental roots. Keyboard wizard Boris Blank, 64, brings an avalanche of sounds and samples to Limbo’s trademark, inimitable absurdist pop, accompanying Orson Wells-voiced Dieter Meier’s typically droll, surreal lyrical narrative. With much of the album sounding like the sort of music that might play in a futurist casino, Blank’s sonic palette stretches from eastern pipes to Balearic comedown music to (gulp) sexagenarian dubstep. Meanwhile, it’s hard not to imagine the inscrutable frontman waxing his moustache with delight at titles such as Tool of Love and the bone dry lyrics of Starlight Scene, wherein he loses his heart to someone offering “irony and wonderful hypocrisy”. At 71, Meier can be forgiven for enjoying the company of one too many female guest vocalists, although Fifi Rong propels Kiss the Cloud and Dark Side with a similar powerful glamour that Shirley Bassey once brought to The Rhythm Divine.
