All the cuts on this album segue in to each other giving it a long continuous play (where on their previous album, there was the usual silence between cuts). As before, Franco Falsini gives us some truly mindblowing and lush synth work, and he uses his guitar more here, added a bunch of fuzz. I just love the opening cut, "Smooth and Round", with the bass starting in, and Franco Falsini playing some spacy stuff on his Eminent (a string organ that sounds like a string synth). This then segues in to "Fullglast", where the first part find Falsini playing guitar. There's an almost bluesy passage in this piece, then it ends with a synth passage, complete with Eminent and Minimoog. "Phase One and Phase Two" is another excellent piece dominated by guitar and Eminent, I especially love the phasing at the end. "Underwater" consists of a spacy theme played on the Eminent, then they get in to something more atmospheric, a bit like Pink Floyd, before you suddenly hear the theme of "Smooth and Round" played in reverse!

Side two opens up with "The Next Place of Nobody". This is a purely electronic piece that could easily fit on Fragments of Light. I love how it segues in to "Pasty Day Resistance", where the music gets more and more intense, making this probably the most intense thing I've heard from these guys. "Leave My Chemistry Alone" was later re-recorded on Finest Finger as that album's title track (with added-on vocals). The original is completely instrumental and it shows how effective this piece is with just the guitars, synths, and drums.

"Strange About the Hands" is yet another piece re-recorded for Finest Finger, on that album it was titled "Strange About Your Hands, again with vocals. The original, once again, proving it's great without the vocals, and in fact this original is even better, because it includes added-on spacy synthesizers the re-recorded version didn't. The album then ends with "With Relative Jump Into Water". This is a wondeful all-electronic piece with the Eminent droning and some great use of Moog. A quite peaceful sounding piece to wind you down after the rest of the album. Certainly the music is more difficult to get in to than Fragments of Light, but as far as I'm concerned, Portable Madness is one of their best. Another thing I forgot to mention, is this is completely instrumental, unlike Fragments of Light and Finest Finger, which is great with me, as those two albums demonstrate, the vocals are certainly not their high point.

It's unfortunate that Portable Madness never made it as a CD reissue, forcing you to pay the extra money for an original LP (on Polydor). In other words, hold on to your turntables. Still, very highly recommended to all who enjoy both electronic and prog.