**300 copies, silver vinyl** Originating as a multi-channel installation commissioned by Nottingham Contemporary in 2018, the four extended pieces here were recorded at home in Morecambe Bay and then subsequently placed in a room alongside works by Moki Cherry (spouse of Don, mother of Neneh and Eagle-Eye Cherry), Penny Slinger, and a collection of static musical instruments the piece was intended to complement. As a follow-up to Sterling’s 2017 cult hit Hollywood Medieval for The Death of Rave, Laced With Rumour... works with notably more fluid and gently psychoactive structuring that takes in seemingly disparate influences - from Roman mythology to Nottingham’s Lace industry - that result in a sprawling but intimate world of sound, characterised by aetheric arrangements that effectively elide the disciplines of spiritual jazz, chamber music, and art installation into something altogether new.

Much like Kara-Lis Coverdale’s converging interests in traditional vs hyper-modern, acoustic vs artificial and synthetic modes of sound, Sterling’s work here is fluid and unorthodox, but rooted in a deep understanding of convention which he proceeds to bend and shape at will.  The album opens with a slowly contemplative and almost solemn drift between Laced, which features samples of Don Cherry weft into its tingling fray of electro-acoustic timbres, alongside the breezy chamber strokes of With Rumour, the hallucinogenic qualities of Loud-Speaker, and the darker revelation Of Truth, which concludes with a transition from mired murk to tones that channel Maxwell’s refined cinematic nous.

One of those albums that's impossible to fully absorb in one sitting, Laced With Rumour... takes you from a swirl of brushed cymbals into harpsichord shimmers, passages of solo piano falling up against the deepest subs like a more bruised and flipped Sakamoto + Alva Noto collab, to Arthur Russell's World of Echo slowly descending into synthesised madness. It's a rich and stunning meditation for our time.