The Neo-Realist is similar to Byrne and Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts but depends less on found, pre-recorded material and offers a greater variety of music. It’s an example of the creative potential available to artists using production techniques themselves to make music, rather than just to recreate a group’s sound.

– Herb Levy, The Weekly

At every step of the way, there is clearly a strong attention to detail here, which at first listen may not be obvious. Savant is interested in examining ideas of what is foreground and what constitutes background in our listening experience, and the casual listener can, I think, be forgiven for imagining he hears only background. This record takes an investment of time and attention to reveal its charms, and it is time well spent off the beaten path.

– Gregory Taylor, RTQE

The spectre of Eno also looms over K. Leimer and his Palace of Lights crew from Seattle who make up Savant. Many of the same techniques are used, but instead of ritual trances, Savant has developed a pan-ethnic techno-dub music. Origins are blurred on “Shadow In Deceit” with African percussion bouncing across the stereo field while the guitars make like Japanese kotos and chimes. “Using Words” has a backwards vocal track played over a Moroccan rhythm with bent, carnival-mirror guitars. Throughout, electronic and acoustic sounds are clouded through a maze of unidentified taped sounds that fade in and out of the mix. It’s centered by throbbing ostinato bass lines and punchy, syncopated percussives.

– John Diliberto