12 is the first record in four years from Norway's Supersilent, a band even less imaginative than Soft Machine when it comes to album titles. The first time I listened to it, I was driving, and it wasn't always clear whether the rumbles and hums were there in the music or were simply coming from my car. The next time I played it, I was on a plane, and again the soundworld – akin at moments to a distant hair dryer, at others to a full-blown thunderstorm – merged in my headphones with the ambient sounds beyond. 12 is a record of textures, mesmeric and immersive, forever unfolding to distant horizon. Nothing happens, everything happens, as layers of sound slowly collide like tectonic plates. So when fragments of melody do emerge, for instance via Henriksen's trumpet on ‘12.7’ and ‘12.8’, they are all the more powerful: poignant points of focus as the ground beneath them is torn into strips or crumpled like paper by Sten (aka Deathprod) and Storløkken. More than 15 years after they formed, Supersilent remain both deeply unusual and powerfully affecting.