6 tracks. Running time 47:19 A new name in the ambient/drone world (new to me, anyway) is Mingo. His album The Once and Future World takes the undaunted listener on a journey through inner and outer space, to nebulous twilight realms that are half dreamt and connect with deep levels of consciousness. Apparently Steve Roach and Numina are influences. You can tell this from the style of some drones and washes, and in some of the tribal-esque rhythms. Mingo uses modern equipment and old analogue synthesizers to extraordinarily good effect, the resulting layers of sound mesh together superbly. The first of six tracks, "Between the Wave", is a slow motion piece with drones and washes that are varied in intensity, texture, and prominence. Throughout we also hear sparse notes ding into the soundscape and then fade away. By this early stage of the album a comparison to Steve Roach's album On This Planet became inevitable for me, partially due to the sonics but primarily for the spine tingling and dense atmospheres. Are we being elevated to another plane of existence in "Hollow Ascension"? A wall of sound almost surrounds the listener; strands of hard reverbing synth drones constantly pass by as fast bubbling and thrumming drums keep the pace vertiginously frenetic. A sound something like a distorted and echoey piano plays out a repeating melody that feels as though we're striving to climb up a massive staircase designed for giants. For me this is a totally satisfying track. The final track, and the longest one at fifteen minutes, "Once and Future World" is a mass of drones being pushed and tugged by insistent currents - we're adrift in a moderately swelling sea that could become turbulent at any moment. One drone stands out above the rest, panning across the soundscape like the brief but repeated scans of a lighthouse beam. It's up to the listener to decide what the tidal forces in this piece could represent. Maybe they're of deep down thoughts, or the gravitational tangle between cosmic bodies, or the struggles of life on Earth. I'd say that The Once and Future World is not an album for the faint hearted. It's not dark in an overtly scary sense, but it does verge on the unnerving. This is a brilliant work that reaches in to your mind and doesn't let go, especially if the volume is cranked up. I recommend it without hesitation.