Thet Liturgiske Owäsendet are Linus Schrab and Johan Fotmeijer. Armed with guitars, field recordings and modular synths they've evolved their own brand of improvised soundscaping over a number of previous releases.While much of their output has tended to be long form, drone based textural explorations, this release opts for shorter running times and a greater variety in approach to both form and texture.

The pair's previous cassette 'Hafvet' was inspired by (and named after) the sea, and the industrialised but sparsely populated American Midwest is the inspiration for this one; it's clear that geography's important to them. The opening 'Platteville' is presumably named after oad (pop.1,256). Mournful melodic phrases are looped into a chunk of lush, classically inflected melancholia worthy of Stars of the Lid – post apocalyptic easy listening, perhaps. The brief but gorgeous 'Hazel Green' is named after a village around 15 miles down the road (pop.1,256). Perhaps fittingly it plays with near silence, placing slowly overlapping stacks of chords over a muted ticking pulse. Occasional percussive bass figures punctuate the shimmering harmonic clouds that dominate the faintly Eno-esque 'Klar Piquett', while 'Iron Ridge' drops us into a nightmarish industrial soundscape of low frequency noisebursts, piledriver thumps, gaseous hisses and distant looped voices that's reminiscent of the early work of 80s experimentalists 23 Skidoo.

'Mineral Point' is the most obviously programmatic piece; a lumbering yet insistent tattoo of metallic clunks, scrapes and thuds grind away in a suitably machine like fashion while faint bell like tones hover above. 'Rajah' closes things off in a more subdued manner, its faint, simple melodic figure looping away to itself on rising thermals; a long cool drink of water after the heat. By turns immersive and in your face, Wisconsin Mining State is a luminous, involving imaginary soundtrack best heard with lights off and headphones on.

FWD18 will be available digitally and as a limited edition cassette, packaged in cardboard box with riso-print in rare risofedral blue on rough warmwhite paper stock.