7/10

'Half A Century' is the work of an artist who has finally stopped trying to separate the different parts of himself. Across eleven tracks, Austrian producer Alexander Nantschev brings together the many musical instincts that have shaped his life and allows them to rub against one another without smoothing away the friction.

The story behind his work has always been split between contrasting influences. As a child, he absorbed the discipline and emotional scale of composers such as Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and Schoenberg through his father, while his brother’s studio offered a completely different education in synthesisers, tape machines and beat-making. But instead of choosing one path or the other, 'Half A Century' embraces the tension between both.

Throughout this new offering, classical precision can give way to looser, more exploratory passages; as melodic ideas are allowed to stretch into stranger territory. His own background as a violinist and composer also gives the music structural confidence, but the album is at its most exciting when that discipline begins to fray around the edges.

As the closing chapter of the trilogy that began with 'Selves' and continued through 'Your Star Smells Like Mine', the record also carries a strong sense of resolution. 'Selves' asked what happens when one person contains many identities, and 'Half A Century' seems to answer by allowing them all to speak at once.

That makes the timing of the album, arriving in his 50th year, feel significant without turning the record into a monument to the past. There is reflection here, certainly, but there's just as much curiosity. And it's that forward momentum that ultimately makes 'Half A Century' so rewarding to listen to.

Adventurous, intelligent and gloriously unconcerned with tidy boundaries, the album feels like a milestone without ever sounding final. Alexander Nantschev closes one creative cycle here, but the music already seems to be leaning toward whatever strange, colourful direction comes next.