Ibukun Sunday - Olùsìn [Worshippers]

Ibukun Sunday has spent several releases for Phantom Limb - and, before that, its digital-only imprint Spirituals - quietly building one of the more distinctive corners of contemporary ambient music: devotional in spirit, but constructed from field recordings, bird calls, and West African rhythmic tradition as much as from synthesis. Olúsín [Worshippers] is the fullest statement of that project yet, an eight-track meditation on faith as something rhythmic and communal rather than solemn or still. Across Whisper, Echoes, Amen, Breeze, Ages, Devotion, Hill, and Edge, Sunday - a Lagos native now based in north London - lets choral drones, subtly emerging percussion, and long, elegant motifs coalesce into something closer to a soundtrack of praise than a conventional ambient record. It's patient music, but never inert; there's a pulse underneath even its quietest passages.

Opening track Whisper delivers on its title from the first few bars. A delicate arpeggio lays the foundation while twinkling pads and strings grow and evolve, until at just over two minutes a key change brings a brief surge in density before receding again to the barest of elements, gently ushering us into Echoes. Picking up where Whisper leaves off, Echoes opens with dark, foreboding pads punctured by a lead that could almost be birdsong - if a track were ever going to convey the unease of being alone in a forest, this is it. Gradually we're led into a crescendo of modulating pads that extends across the back half of the piece before fading into nothing once more.

Amen answers with bright strings and lead lines that glow like sunbeams breaking through the forest canopy, its vocal sample offering something like an act of thanks for the anxious tension Echoes leaves behind. Fourth track Breeze provides a playful respite before the record edges back into tension with Ages - on first listen, I could picture the artist performing it alone in some abandoned, overgrown place of worship, awash with reverb and mystery.

Devotion initially strips away the reverb that soaked Ages, bringing lead and pad work upfront and exposed, before filtering those elements back out and softly delivering us into the embrace of Hill. Once again it's a haunting, pensive experience, where moments of near-silence carry as much weight as the spine-tingling lead and pad work woven through it.

Closer Edge is built from gorgeous plucked string lines, patiently building in size and intensity before dissolving away entirely - and with that, our time in the church of Olúsín is complete.

Olúsín [Worshippers] is out now via Phantom Limb, on digital and vinyl.