Minneapolis’ Huntley Miller has thus far carved out a niche in modern electronic music with a pair of EPs and a well received series of remixes for the likes of Dosh (Anticon) and Fog (Lex); their utter beauty notwithstanding, these experiments in tension & release and melody & mechanics are a mere prelude to his proper debut Natura Morta.Recorded in seclusion throughout 2005 and early 2006, Miller characterizes Natura Morta as a “highly personal response” to the events and circumstances of his life at that time; one gets this sense in spades from an uncannily unique pairing of lilting melodies with beats arranged to an astonishing degree of detail. Like looking at a fractal, Natura is infinitely deep while remaining a singular aesthetic experience even on the surface. Tracks like “The Undeniable Bend” coast on grainy, minor-key synth stabs and erratic melodies while layers of digital disjecta burst and crackle across the stereo field; never has computer-based music approximated the environ of the outdoors in late afternoon so effectively, and clearly this conjuring of the natural via the synthetic is Miller’s gift to music.Not only is Natura Morta a concise, confident statement from a unique musician at the top of his game, it’s a re-imagining of the principles of complex electronic music, trained on the heart & awaiting the ears of those who long for the human element.