'The Pool' represents Apta’s most focused and compelling version to date. Based on the transformative plunge of a psychedelic experience, it traces both hesitant steps into the unknown and euphoric melodic bliss. Recorded using a combination of modular synthesis, Arp Odyssey, bass, guitar, Elektron groovebox and, for the first time in Apta’s recorded history, a hint of vocals. There are strands of melody from the outset, woven through trembling modular synths and saturated bass guitar. But it is on “Shiver” and its successor “Awash” that Apta’s distinctive blend of ambient music and flourishing melody takes over. We are also treated to other off-piste excursions, expanding the boundaries of Apta’s already diverse sound and resulting in an album that sits somewhere between post-rock, ambient pop and kosmische. Although there are certainly echoes of that immaculate production aesthetic that has defined Apta’s sound to date, there are many more layers involved, with grainy percussion and analog distortion playing a much bigger role, echoing the waves of emotion involved in the tryptamine plunge, and resulting in a stylistically varied, yet familiar, experience. “The Pool” is both surprising and intriguing, richly layered yet undeniably melodic, and has found its ideal home on Castles In Space. Barry Smethurst adds: “The Pool” feels to me like the kind of album that embodies what I’m trying to do with my music, influenced by melodic electro and guitar-led post rock while sounding like neither. I’ve always thought it would be nice to have another layer in my compositions (a minor key here or there) and less upbeat pieces, and I think the LP’s theme works perfectly in parallel, with both moments of sublime joy and glimmers of intimidating unknown coming together. The album was “Finished” just before I got the Arp Odyssey, so it was originally much less heavy on Arp, but as the synth’s noise oscillator mix works perfectly with the saturated haze of the LP as a whole, I went back and recorded a bunch of parts to add it.