this was the illbient M/O - take something that was perfectly good in its own right (and weird in its own right) and then do a slightly wonky take on it
I just had a listen, it is really embarrasingly bad. I don't feel the same about his debut album though. I have been re-listening to it this afternoon and it holds its own much better than I expected. Might be nostalgia colouring my perspective. Or maybe just the rare pleasure of re-listening to something I listened to intensively for months (compared to days, at best, now). Or maybe that I just liked triphop. Was this illbient ever a real thing beyond his liner notes? It sounds just like triphop to me.