With Sam Shepherd’s Floating Points project moving further away from the dancefloor and former status as king of Plastic People with every release, it seemed like only a matter of time before he made a record with an orchestra and a free-jazz luminary. From that point of view, then, the music on Promises – a single, 45-minute semi-minimalist quasi-concerto for saxophone backed by various keyboard instruments and a string orchestra recorded in what appears to be a single, live, and rather spine-tingling take – is not a huge surprise. From the point of view of how much can be done with such sparse foundations, how to bring together fairly disparate musical worlds, and how captivating a recording can be, though, Promises is astonishing.

On his 2016 EP, producer Floating Points (nee Sam Shepherd) offers two extended tracks (+ one track on Bonus CD) that occasionally sound like Neu! with steroids and 40 years of additional recording technology on their side.
"For Marmish Part II" is a gentle trip, constructed around a simple piano riff that fades in and out of accompanying collected sounds. Cymbals rustle, a choral whisper descends, or a cheeky synth appears. Without much real development, it avoids becoming tedious through his masterful arrangement. There’s no rush, no hurry: you could probably listen to it on loop for hours without even realizing, drifting away with every glistening key…