Mark Fell, one half of Sheffield-orbiting experimental duo SND, will release a solo album through Raster-Noton on December 7.

SND released their most recent album, the superb Atavism, via the same German label. Fell’s new work is entitled Multistability, and is his first solo release since 2004’s Ten Types Of Elsewhere, if you discount the 2008 DVD Attack On Silence and two cassette splits with Evol. It’s described in a press release as “primarily an exploration of erratic and non-regular rhythmic patterns…combining meticulous synthetic chordal layering with convoluted, chaotic yet fundamentally engaging temporal structures.”

The work is reportedly inspired by ideas of “multistability” in Gestalt psychology (where the term refers to “the effect where one is unable to perceive a single stable object within complex or ambiguous patterns”) and systems theory (where it describes “a condition that is neither stable nor instable, where a system switches between different states”), as well as by collaborator Yasunao Tone’s investigation o the intentionality and time in musical practice. In other words: heavy shit.

If SND’s recent work is anything to go by, the academic aspirations of Multistability won’t come at the cost of listenability.

Tracklist
01. Multistability 1-A
02. Multistability 2-A
03. Multistability 3
04. Multistability 5-A
05. Multistability 6-A
06. Multistability 7-A
07. Multistability 2-AA
08. Multistability 10-A / Multistability 11
09. Multistability 1-B
10. Multistability 2-B
11. Multistability 4
12. Multistability 5-B
13. Multistability 6-B
14. Multistability 7-B
15. Multistability 9
16. Multistability 10-B
17. Multistability 12