Though it does have a clammy atmosphere, Sound Bath isn’t just a “bathhouse album.” You certainly don’t have to be a Gay History major, or even promiscuous, to get down with it. Beginning with “Softest,” which feels like a particularly gentle Autechre track from Incunabula, Sound Bath highlights the gentle, welcoming side of this kind of electronic music. Like its title implies, it’s relaxing, almost comforting, even when things start to get steamy. With drums circling around, but rarely hammering out, its 107 BPM beat, the LP is almost tantric in its commitment to the rhythm, and it changes positions frequently enough so it never gets stiff or hits the same spot for too long.

If you want to use your imagination, though, there are plenty of bathhouse characteristics here. Reverb-soaked hi-hats spray sweat and condensation, strange sounds ring out into the darkness, and voices mutter and whisper around you. The mood changes to mirror the feeling of getting lost in the darker corners, culminating in the eerie “The Feelings,” where the pitter-patter drums start to feel a little paranoid, and Cicelsky speaks directly into your ear. It’s either a suave seduction or a sinister turn—it’s all in the eye of the beholder, or at least the bathhouser.

After “The Feelings,” Sound Bath takes a more expressive turn, less seedy and more euphoric. “Labyrinth” is a stunning dub techno track where you can concretely hear Cicelsky’s guitar unfurl like wisps of smoke. A muffled rhythm floats across the soundscape like flashing lights that feel a bit too intense after a heroic huff of poppers. And the closing “Eternal Lovers” touches on Moby levels of pathos, blanketing its skippy beat with long, sustained notes until the whole thing dissolves into a blissed-out exhale that’s either the tingly aftermath of la petite mort, or just the relief of getting through something.

Feelings is the key word here: Sound Bath is one of the more emotional dance music albums of the year, either because of or in spite of its origins. You can assign all kinds of skeevy, sexy feelings to it, but you can also just appreciate it as a beautifully sculpted techno record that highlights the warmth and melody of the genre at its various peaks: late-’80s Detroit, early ’90s UK, mid-to-late-’90s Europe. It doesn’t sound at all like a guy with a guitar strapped to his chest, but it does sound like someone made it with their own hands, the music moving and evolving in real time rather than looping on a screen.