As on ‘Electric Intervals’, Martyn Heyne plays a multitude of instruments on ‘Open Lines’. A first is that the album also features two of Heyne’s long-time collaborators, the cellist Anne Müller, best known for her work with Agnes Obel and Nils Frahm, and his former Efterklang live band colleague Tatu Rönkkö on drums.

The filmic and narrative quality of ‘Open Lines’ becomes apparent at first listen: ‘Dancing on a Landfill’ is the opening scene in which we observe the subjects of the story for the first time, but as of yet can only deduct few of their characteristics. The skies change for ‘Night Pylon’, cracks start showing and uncertainty hangs in the air. The guitar tells it like a searching light in the dark until an unexpected Kalimba and Bongos join into the rhythm.

If the music had an almost song-like character until now, ‘The Hall’ lets it fall by the wayside. The most spacious and intangible piece on the album builds slowly from a stirring intro like little waves that gradually form stronger currents. As it grows, the acoustics of the hall start to reveal themselves, echoing from the high notes like an imagined choir, and, as if passing through a portal, the hall suddenly comes into full view when the notes shine a light on each detail of its architecture: soaring upwards along the pillars to the highest ceilings and eventually coming to a tumultuous landing like the ocean crashing ashore until its energy is reduced to the spume that sinks into the sand.

About the impressionistic ’As Mad As Man’ Heyne says: On this piece, when I played it to an old friend, I’ve gotten a comment that really reflected and understood my purpose for making music when he said: ‘This is exactly what my last year was like!’

After Heyne has already led the listener from Krautrock to contemporary classical, the events of ‘That Which Flickers’ take a decidedly electronic turn. This is a scene of midnight fumes hanging in alleyways and of an almost brutal bluntness. A deep industrial wasteland is navigated on tiptoes until the listener eventually arrives at the saving chords of ‘Neuwerk’.

Opening like a heartfelt declaration, ‘Neuwerk’ is carried by a single guitar orator that lays out the tune. As more instruments join, the piece grows until a determined group of heavy piano, drums, bass, cellos and, guitar reiterate with conviction what the beginning of the piece suggested. It is the most human moment of the album and after it, everyone has their cards on the table. Following this tipping point, in ‘Red Brick Black’ we suddenly see a chain of events unraveling. Lose ends from all parts of the story get picked up and resolved in one big whirl of situations that play out simultaneously.

Finally in ‘The Hall Reprise’ the broad cello lines flow slowly through a mountain range of guitar swells. The harmony relates back to the third piece on the album, and in this final, hazy scene one realises that all that came before was perhaps not quite how it seemed. And that we really cannot be sure of what happened at all.

The album’s resulting eclecticism, which in times of growing compartmentalisation of music could pose a challenge to some listeners, was not lost on Heyne: ‘People have said that, but to the furthest extent that I could, I turned away from any expectations and faced only the music. There were no restrictions on dynamics or time and the music did not fill any frame but the frame fell around what grew, bottom-up, sheltered, and steadily. The process was not confrontational but self-evident – I was not looking to cross any lines - I wanted to open them up.’