In "Porous Structures II", Ruben Machtelinckx returns to his exploration of sound as space - an auditory ecology where each note finds itself both alone and enmeshed, suspended in a hazy yet intricate collective. His collaborators, guitarists Frederik Leroux and Fredrik Rasten, along with percussionist Toma Gouband, contribute to this ambient puzzle, creating a three-part suite that feels at once like a drifting dream and a careful study in texture.

If "Porous Structures" was Machtelinckx’s study in silence, its sequel seems to probe further into the physicality of sound. The ensemble’s three acoustic guitars weave a dense, immersive tapestry, each player’s touch mingling and echoing in an aural mirage where distinguishing one voice from another becomes beautifully irrelevant. Gouband’s delicate percussion, made from organic materials like stones and tree branches, adds to the sense that the music is something elemental, something growing rather than being performed.

"In my earliest memory I see trees", the album's opener, creates a “state of being” through diffuse harmonics and barely-there motifs, while "Falling forward becomes a walk" injects a hint of propulsion. It’s a paradox: this music that feels “unstuck” in time, as though the concept of forward movement was left behind in favor of pure presence. The piece "Void of Narration" further embodies this unstructured, floating feeling, with Gouband’s percussion offering quiet flares of shimmer and resonance-a bit like catching light at dusk.

This is not an album of solos, melodies, or conventional harmony but one of tones and subtle shifts. Machtelinckx has managed to make music that feels like an environment unto itself, gently immersive and infinitely listenable, as delicate as a spider’s web and as precise as a watchmaker’s art. For fans of his previous "Porous Structures" work or for anyone who finds themselves captivated by music that exists outside of structure and time, "Porous Structures II" is an invitation to lose yourself in sound itself - a place, a feeling, and, indeed, a structure, so porous that it seems boundless.