Altered Carbon is the debut album from Les (Neu) Scott as Neu Gestalt.
A self-confessed musical philistine with regard to a great deal of pre 20th century classical music, he is known for his deep, almost unbalanced, loathing of “the mind-numbing predictability” of Mozart and liking for “only the really quiet bits” of Mahler. Nonetheless there is often a sedate classical approach in his pieces. He is more drawn to the sense of space found in the contemporary Japanese zen-classicism of Somei Satoh or the textures and cool clarity of “actually, it’s mainly the really quiet parts again” of Webern. The mix for him is to fuse this liking with grainy found sounds and his own brand of (100bpm or thereby) reductionist electronica within which there are also barely recognisable trace elements of hip-hop.
Comparisons are difficult, and influences generally invisible - though if the roughest of comparison must be made, the music is probably closer in spirit to Murcof’s “Martes” than anything else contemporary that could be named.
Regularly accused of philistinism with regard to language too, he is endlessly told that the spelling of his name should be Neue.
