There are many parts of Adnan Duric-Steinmann’s debut “Innovations For Electric Strings” that remind me strongly of Mike Oldfield’s attempts to sound trendy and relevant. It might seem an unexpected comparison for this Filigran release but hear me out. It’s certainly not a criticism.

Here’s a clearly accomplished virtuoso guitarist with a penchant for moody and progressive instrumental noodling, setting their work onto a bed of electronica which is listenable but a bit uneventful. Occasionally he’ll switch to piano to show off his multi-instrumental credentials, but the guitar work is where the real feeling lies. The EDM-lite bed is well observed but just a touch cliché and somehow you can tell that it’s not where the performance’s real passion lies. Tracks like “Libero” are examples of this, as is “No Pasaran” which sadly is melodic house by numbers.

To say that’s true throughout would be a big disservice though, as some tracks like “Noise Is For Heroes” is a tight bit of faintly glitchy production. “Bacchus And Me” is a form of electro-jazz with a lovely tone to it, although it ends flatly. “Neon Desperado” has an unusual, flamenco-meets-cowboy-movie-inside-a-synthesizer flavour to it that somehow really works.

The blend of organic live instruments with electronica (“at the precipice where the human meets the machine” as the press release puts it) is sometimes a very effective concoction, and some tracks ooze polish and class. A couple of less convincing, less convicted numbers let the side down just slightly.