Valgeir Sigurdsson Ekvílibríum WB rating out of 100

For thousands of years, music has comprised of at least one of two immutable, eternal and essential elements: voice and instrumentation. Since the earliest civilizations, musicians naturally needed something in front of them to make noise, and over the ensuing millennia, various exponents designed a dazzling array of tools with which to ply their trade.

And then Kraftwerk happened.

The birth of electronic music in the early '70s has spawned an evolutionary battle between those who would eliminate instruments altogether from the musical landscape, and those who would rebel, and refuse to consider even digital recording techniques. In the middle is Valgeir Sigurðsson. Where Kraftwerk understood the de-personalising nature of electronic beats and sounds, creating an inhuman soundscape with more than a little irony, Sigurðsson – the Timbaland of alternative music, a man responsible for multitudinous collaborations with artists as diverse as Björk (his principal co-conspirator), Múm, Bonnie Prince Billy, Machine Translations and Kate Nash – recognizes the need for synthesis between the digital and the organic, and it is where this symbiosis is most evident that his much-anticipated debut, Ekvílibríum, truly delivers.

The other great quandary raised by the advent of computers capable of blending any noise together to create new sounds is one of restraint versus excess. How much electronic noise is too much electronic noise? Why use bleeps, whirrs and crackles if they sound essentially worse than something that can be created by conventional means? Does the listener want melody? Or new sonic landscapes in which to wander? Does this newfound technology actually ADD anything? On Ekvílibríum, Sigurðsson sounds confident dealing with many of these questions.

Two instrumental tracks, album opener 'A Symmetry' and third song 'Focal Point' provide the perfect, if ironically asymmetric depiction of everything that is right and wrong on Ekvílibríum. Both instrumental tracks, 'A Symmetry' is classic difficult electronica, with fuzzy, clicking industrial percussion and a veritable orchestra of manufactured noises wafting around the edges of the song. It's a song that's hard to love.

Six minutes later, however, 'Focal Point' is an object lesson in how to make warm, human music with the assistance of electronic aides. Like the Hollywood movie which utilizes CGI to enhance the story, 'Focal Point's distorted beats and augmented piano tinklings are perfectly accompanied by some wonderfully untreated strings and toy pianos to create the kind of sonic vista that only seems to come from Iceland at the moment.

While 'Equilibrium is Restored', a tender, soothing track, successfully toes the 'traditional versus experimental' line, it doesn't really go anywhere over the course of its eight-and-a-half minute running time, and feels as though it belongs on some new-age meditation CD, complete with whale noises.

Having such a rich history of collaborators, in particular Björk, the crown princess of effective studio trickery, it is unsurprising to find many familiar names providing vocal support, including the above mentioned Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and J 'Machine Translations' Walker. Also providing sterling support are the Dirty Three's Warren Ellis and Dawn McCarthy of psych folk group Faun Fables. In fact, it is these songs, where Sigurðsson allows the music to sit back and let his singer take center stage that things work best.

McCarthy's vocals on 'Winter Sleep', and Prince Billy's on 'Kin' provide character and depth to the two clearest winners on the record, Sigurðsson allowing the electronic regalia to take a back seat to swooping string sections and occasional bursts of true wonderment.

Sometimes, in the flurry of experimentation that has occurred since Kraftwerk first used a primitive synthesizer to lay beats down for the landmark 'Autobahn', it needs to be remembered that making groundbreaking, beautiful music is not merely a case of throwing enough electronic buzzes at a wall and seeing what sticks, but crafting songs, as songs have always been crafted, using all of the tools at one's disposal, to make music that can convey emotion, character and sincerity. And while the Icelandic Timbaland's solo debut clearly shows that Valgeir Sigurðsson understands this necessary caveat to 21st century music, it is the occasional lapses into self-indulgent avant-gardism that hold back Ekvílibríum from taking its place at the head of the laptop music table.