Deep Time (Robert Stone Music) What initially seems an avant-garde rock album turns out to be a CD made by a bunch of fogies who love music and knob twiddling on a procession of nerdy synthesisers and machines. This is the second release from the Hong Kong Silicon Orchestra, better known as Robert Stone and Gordon Mathews. Citing jazz masters John Coltrane and Miles Davis, 1960s art-rockers Velvet Underground and Spanish composer Manuel de Falla as influences, the album could also be the soundtrack to some overlooked independent film or a Vangelis-in-training exercise. Deep Time begins like a tune-up session, but slowly unfolds into an 80s-sounding dreamscape. What is undisputed is its base in improvisational jazz and its penchant for New Age electronic stylings. A highly synthesised keyboard sound is its bedrock with a Yamaha WX5 Wind MIDI Controller - a sort of electric version of Kenny G's tenor saxophone - building on those foundations. It is, however, difficult to distinguish one track from another and prosaic titles such as Sweeping Generalisations, The Wonderous Gift, Rhinosaurs And Hipprepostrous and Not Forgotten don't make it any easier. On one hand, Deep Time could open up a new universe of listening, thinking and feeling, but it could just as easily be passed off as an electronic love letter to technology itself. Exactly what this album wants to be is not entirely clear, but its creators will probably delight at this very notion. It is a weird and delicate mixture of sounds and definitely an acquired taste.