Ayman Rostom sheds his usual guise of The Maghreban for an album under the new alias of Mystery Tiime. Titled Maudlin Tales Of Grief & Love, the music bravely marks a move away from his floor-filling techno and house to raw, deeply personal songs. His unfiltered lyrics dealing with subjects such as relationships, death and addiction.

The words have an unfussy, “first thought, best thought” feel and Rostom’s “untutored” delivery makes no attempt to affect anything other than his day-to-day accent. Both of these attributes link the recordings to the work of Robert Wyatt. Rostom’s vocals are honest and vulnerable, and his songs a little like diary entries. As a consequence another point of reference might be This Heat’s Gareth Williams’ Flaming Tunes side project. Built largely from sparse synths / keys, live bass and the odd sax squall, stark, and unflinching and relatively unadorned, it’s also similar in some ways to Sam Morten’s recent long-player, Daffodils & Dirt.

While the overall narrative is always kept cryptic, never laid completely bare, the set suggests someone looking back, remembering a loved one who has either left or been lost. Plughole Man and and Not Your Fault are the album’s darkest moments. The latter deceptively shuffling to a preprogrammed Bontempi organ bossa nova beat. Long Distance Runner, with its tumbling percussion, pounding piano and marimba runs recalls the post-punk jazz of Furniture’s I Can`t Crack, but Lo-Fi, made on machines in a back bedroom. A Cruel Trick is strange outsider pop, rattling along on rudimentary drum patterns, like a stray from Music From Memory’s Uneven Paths comp. Thank You Deeply is the LP’s most spritely and therefore accessible number. Like a plugged-in Pete Brandt singing about happier times and “Salad days in Archway.”

Mystery Tiime’s Maudlin Tales Of Grief & Love can be preordered directly from Vicious Charm.