As the Summer sun begins to fade and the shadows grow longer, FireScope returns to record store shelves with an EP from the label’s founder; Steve Rutter. Reflecting this change in the season, Science and Neuroses explores sounds that reverberate with darker tones.

Introspection is central in the cold currents and fragile melodies of “Neuro Fracture.” A deeply psychological piece which casts images of woodlands, night skies with a suggestion of something altogether sinister stalking the opener. Echoing samples introduce “Not to be Trusted.” The track skulks in a haze of bass as notes ghost through a heady mist of claps, kicks and snares. Steeped in the traditions of ambient and atmospherics, Rutter creates an audio landscape of unsettling vistas and alien forms. “Divine Intervention” is emblematic of this. Bold and expressive, harmonies are allowed to float freely with new ideas and shapes drifting and gliding into the arrangement. To close, “Reds Dead” brings the EP full circle. Xylophonic notes bob on juddering patterns of cymbal and tom as distant keys rise and fall in a silvery blue sea of meditative waves.

With this quartet, Rutter has given the listener a privileged journey into his musical mind. Watery shades mingle and melt in wintry hues, eclipsing canopies obscure and magnify elegance, fractured and fragmented phrases fusing through freeform.