Synthwave maven Dan Terminus got his start on debut, Stratospheric Cannon Symphony, an album originally meant to score an as-yet-released video game. Response was so overwhelming to the eventually-released Stratospheric Cannon Symphony that Terminus realized he had something official to preoccupy his time and creative energy. Now, three years later, the French maestro of the digitally obtuse, futuristically existential has released his most accomplished effort to date in Automated Refrains. Envisioned, designed, and built by Terminus in his France-based music lab, Automated Refrains continues from — but is absolutely its own maniacal tendril — previous effort, The Wrath Of Code. Actually, Terminus states below, he didn’t want to write another The Wrath Of Code when composing Automated Refrains. To wit, Terminus’ new music is more direct, more aggressive, yet still whimsical and fanciful in its sonic predilection. Songs like “Fall of the Ancient World,” “Friendship Through Clear Plastic Walls,” “Electronic Snow,” and masterpiece “Grimoire Blanc” detail Terminus’ world of automatons without human oversight, artificial beings set in motion by the demise or absence of their creators. Musically, it’s like Tangerine Dream getting caught in a disco color wheel, where menace, doubt, fun, longing, and determination set the moods in- and between themes/pieces.