What exactly is an interior escape? A quick Google search reveals a dreary list of lifestyle blogs and beige decor Instagrams, yet Berlin synthpunk artist Cosey Mueller offers a different interpretation; an illicit entice of exotic, vintage sex ads that recall a time before the ubiquity of pornography when erotica was seedy, mysterious and the source of deep, prurient fascination for conservatives and moral crusaders too scared to enter those beaded curtains.

Channelling the same decadent spirit of Soft Cell’s Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret but swapping a pre-gentrified sordid Soho for the edgy contemporary of a Berlin that still offers danger and hedonism, Mueller has dropped a solo album that bristles with amorous charge. Foregoing the cold-wave, post-punk attack of her primary project Das Das, Interior Escapes takes a lo-fi trip to synthpunk’s primitive beginnings, sinewy basslines and fizzy drum machines lifted from Suicide’s minimalist debut informing the sonic character of the album’s eight tracks; slithering, hypnotic grooves that pulse and strut with raw urgency.

Tape hiss and fuzzy noise breathe throughout the album, enveloping with warm, analogue production. The exquisite tandem of sharp snares and driving sequencers strut thrillingly on ‘Ferngesteuert’, Mueller’s echoing vocals bounce off a strung-out, listless Italo-disco stomp that’s given cinematic soar with 80’s thriller guitar licks, while the atonal murk of industrial agitators like Throbbing Gristle hovers over the aptly titled ‘Antisozial’, a nervous descent into the primordial bog of early electro-soaked post-punk that still manages to hang on to a sturdy hook. There are playful, glossy hues that percolate throughout the smog; the taut and peppy ‘Zum Verlieben Keine Zeit’ is a stiff bopper that bounces with the sturdy disquiet heard in old D.A.F. records, and Alan Vega’s mutant interpretation of Gene Vincent spikes the rockabilly slicked ‘Ice Cold Boogie’ with joyful cool.

While synthpunk has permutated into many distinct branches and hybrids (many not worth your time), it’s an audacious move to reach into the genre’s brittle and austere beginnings and not only authentically capture the damaged swagger and alienated energy of the original movement, but also to create a work that feels honest and avoids derivativity. Interior Escapes is a dirty, grubby little gem of an album, that sincerely transports you to a place of allure and intoxication.