Join me in my time machine, dear reader. Let us travel back to a primitive age – a world without David Cameron, double-dip recessions and Leveson enquiries. A simpler time where the existence of the internet still seemed like we’d tiptoed beyond the feeble technologies of the space age. Friend, welcome to the year 1999. Now let us head to a field in Liverpool one summer evening, where an insufferably pretentious teenager is gazing up at the stars, his mind fogged with cheap lager and immersive wonder. Clumsily-construed cod-philosophy tumbles out of his mouth like marbles down a flight of stairs, as the alcohol coursing through his blood mingles with an overpowering sense of awe. He feels tiny, enlightened and infinite.

Back to the present, and what conclusions can we draw from this? Well, yeh, that dumbass kid was me, obviously, but perhaps you recognised something of yourself in him (although for your own sake let’s hope you had better taste in shirts). Remember that feeling that there’s so much more out there than you can possibly understand? That understanding of how insignificant you are in comparison with the universe? The above scene represents the last time I sincerely experienced that (or, at least, without the tedious inner monologue of adulthood jerking me back to consciousness and saying “back to work, sunshine”). By the time we’re grown-ups, real life gets in the way and there’s a good chance we’ll become jaded, cynical motherfuckers, too busy to lose ourselves to the vastness of it all.

Yes, alright, I’m getting to the fucking album (there goes that aforementioned cynicism, even jeering my own piece).

Anyway. Every now and again, there’s something close to that feeling. Concatenating Fields, for instance. It’s the fourth full-length by Akron, Ohio’s Trouble Books (discounting last year’s collaboration with Mark Maguire), and I can’t remember the last time a band so consistently made me feel like a drunk kid, lying on wet grass and staring at the sky. Is that a compliment? Well, why the hell wouldn’t it be?

Composed mainly of textured washes of electronic sound, this record is nothing if not disorientating. The effervescent drone that opens the album comes replete with bursts of bleeping as fluid as trickling water, suddenly giving way to a softly-throbbing bass pulse. A winding guitar line emerges, cautiously at first, and gradually the whole piece coalesces into a gorgeous crescendo that feels like the sky has folded itself back out. Words like “atmospheric” and “mysterious” are often thrown at ambient-based musicians like Washed Out, but they suit Trouble Books more. Atmospheric, because the experience of listening often feels like drifting through thick layers of drifting gases; barely tangible, barely present, yet somehow intoxicating. Mysterious, because the constant haze of sound eschews recognisable form to become the focus, making melody the accompaniment and texture the key. When pulled off as neatly as it is here, that trick can be intensely powerful. But let’s throw another adjective into the mix: “joyous”, because there are moments during this album that make my heart swell until it’s ready to burst.

‘Lurk Underneath’ is one such moment. Built around heavy-hanging keyboard chords that echo like an ice cave, it sees Linda Lejsovka murmuring: “Rain seems to merge /Into a solid sea and it drowns me” as though totally submerged in the noise the band are making. It’s easy to lose yourself to this song because it already feels lost unto itself (ain’t that half the battle?). Similarly, the plunging guitars of ‘Aloft/See-Through III’ rise and fall from a hot mess of electronic loops, tugging the emotions hither and thither as they do so. Wonderful stuff.

Over on the Bark & Hiss website, Keith Freund explains that the album is influenced by “minimalism and abstract geometry”, citing visual artists like Bridget Riley and Sol LeWitt. This makes perfect sense – the spare, beautiful Concatenating Fields sounds like simple lines arranged to distort the way your brain interprets them, leaving the whole thing a blur that triggers nothing more than a gut-level response. But more than that, its wide-eyed sense of wonder and awe is rich and all-consuming. It’s not the same as being a goofy stargazing kid, with all the beginner-level existentialist angst that entails. But it might just remind you of how incredible it felt to be young and full of questions without answers.