Nonkeen - 8/10

Germany in 1989 was on the cusp of epoch-defining change. A seven-year-old Berliner from the communist East was sent to Hamburg, in democratic West Germany, on a sports exchange. There, the tape recorder he carried piqued the interest of two local boys.

They bonded and stayed in touch, even when their friend headed home. They made radio shows, swapped music they'd made, recorded conversations from school playgrounds, teachers talking, covers of folk and pop songs. In '89 the Wall came down and the Hamburg pair would join their buddy in Berlin every summer to make music. Those boys are men now.

Nonkeen's Sebastian Singwald (the Berliner) and Frederic Gmeiner may not have become as famous as their band's third member, but here they're the equal of that master of the electronic/classical world, Nils Frahm.

'The Gamble's nine tracks are made up of recordings, ideas, re-workings and overdubs recorded over the past decade. They began experimentally, recording initially to tape, but here are fully formed. 'The Gamble' snakes through Latin, Krautrock, jazz, techno and ambient. Often – like ice-encrusted opener 'The Invention Mother' – the crackle of the tape recordings are audible, even made a feature of, like you've been invited to those schoolboy sessions all those years ago.

Some trademark Frahm-isms appear on 'Ceramic People' – hypnotic loops, mournful, muffled piano – but extra fire is breathed into it through low-slung live bass and jazz drums. The itchy, pitched-down bossa nova on 'Animal Farm' is like a relic of trip hop, but organic, with none of that era's awkward handling of samples; flecked with Rhodes, snare fills and muted horns, 'The Beautiful Mess' has the menacing beauty of a Lalo Schiffrin soundtrack, while 'Chasing God Through Palmyra' revives 'Animal Farm's Latin tempo on a head-nodding house trip through blasts of distorted analogue synths.

It's an LP as heart-warming and engaging as the story behind it.