Released this past Tuesday and currently in heavy rotation here in my apartment: Hello Waveforms, a mostly instrumental solo record from the British producer and synth genius William Orbit. It’s his first disc of fresh solo material since 1995, when he put out four separate albums, two under his own name and two with collaborators. (Pieces in a Modern Style, his last solo disc, was originally released in the U.K. in 1995 but was withdrawn immediately for legal reasons; it was re-released in slightly different form in 2000.) Last year I wrote a longish post about my love for Orbit’s music. He’s most famous for his writing and production work on Madonna’s Ray of Light—a disc that’s filled with his signature sounds and production style—but from the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s he put out about a dozen discs of his own music, some under his own name and some with groups like Bassomatic and Torch Song. He’s been coasting a bit in the years since Ray of Light, occasionally doing production work for groups like U2 and Blur.

Hello Waveforms is a minor entry in the Orbit catalog. It doesn’t break any new musical ground, and in fact most of the tracks wouldn’t have sounded out of place on one of his 1995 discs. But it contains lots of tasty analog-synth goodness. It’s a laid-back, atmospheric record; apparently Orbit’s going to release another disc in the spring or summer of this year, and that one will be much more upbeat.

On this page, you can listen to some tracks from Hello Waveforms and watch a recent interview with Orbit. And Orbit’s official website has tons of cool stuff.