The Norwegian winter found cruel reflection in Lasse Marhaug’s ‘White Inferno’ (a 1996 cassette released on Mother Savage Noise Production, latter reissued on CD by Narcolepsia/Old Captain) and again in 2007’s ‘The Great Silence’ CD (on Second Layer). ‘Four Seasons Only Winter’ finds a different focus in the deep snow, beautiful in its painting of Lasse’s remote surrounds but exuding the isolation of a long winter and social distancing unprovoked by a global pandemic.
Single drifting mid-range tones fall slowly through the first season undisturbed, the background a silent white and the trajectory barely moving even as the listener’s focus is drawn in, soft waves of ambience vaguely shaping the contours of the landscape and frequently getting lost in the monochromatic blurring of frosted land and snow-filled sky, and the shallow gradient between night and day.
As the CD moves on the basic canvas is the same, but by the second season the isolation intensifies and reality is compromised, blurred psychoses moving from peripheral vision to the centre, flashes of hallucinatory colour heightened by a low-end presence creeping in – surely the onset of hypothermia. It’s an active and almost vibrant piece contextually – but scary for being so, its vibrancy playing out as delusion rather than genuine hope or seasonal shift.
The final two seasons confirm that wintry despondency, the third hovering a cloud of frozen breath in the air as a cold low hum idles ominously, space closing in on the listener over the lengthy sunless concentration, only to be subsumed by the even longer and wonderfully immense fourth season, its polyphonic drone wrapping the piece in various shares of white while reflecting the rays of the sun finally crawled from the horizon. An inherently musical quality embraces the track in much the same way as Birchville Cat Motel did at Campbell’s best, a crescendo of ever-unfolding tone continuing to emerge from the track as inflections come and go, emphases and tones shift, and the tundra fades into the distance without disturbance.
‘Four Seasons Only Winter’ is one of three simultaneous releases by Sentimental, but the only one in an enduring edition – 200 copies, compared to editions of 20 and 40 respectively for the ‘My Body As A Cavern’ 2x12” and ‘No Authentic Sound Left’ reel tape. It’s also the most restrained and most thematically resolute of the three, unwavering in attention to its carefully realised ambience, and small details – notably the meticulous low-end of the second and third seasons, and subtle tonal transpositions through the final season. This is faultless frozen ambient from a man who clearly knows.
Single drifting mid-range tones fall slowly through the first season undisturbed, the background a silent white and the trajectory barely moving even as the listener’s focus is drawn in, soft waves of ambience vaguely shaping the contours of the landscape and frequently getting lost in the monochromatic blurring of frosted land and snow-filled sky, and the shallow gradient between night and day.
As the CD moves on the basic canvas is the same, but by the second season the isolation intensifies and reality is compromised, blurred psychoses moving from peripheral vision to the centre, flashes of hallucinatory colour heightened by a low-end presence creeping in – surely the onset of hypothermia. It’s an active and almost vibrant piece contextually – but scary for being so, its vibrancy playing out as delusion rather than genuine hope or seasonal shift.
The final two seasons confirm that wintry despondency, the third hovering a cloud of frozen breath in the air as a cold low hum idles ominously, space closing in on the listener over the lengthy sunless concentration, only to be subsumed by the even longer and wonderfully immense fourth season, its polyphonic drone wrapping the piece in various shares of white while reflecting the rays of the sun finally crawled from the horizon. An inherently musical quality embraces the track in much the same way as Birchville Cat Motel did at Campbell’s best, a crescendo of ever-unfolding tone continuing to emerge from the track as inflections come and go, emphases and tones shift, and the tundra fades into the distance without disturbance.
‘Four Seasons Only Winter’ is one of three simultaneous releases by Sentimental, but the only one in an enduring edition – 200 copies, compared to editions of 20 and 40 respectively for the ‘My Body As A Cavern’ 2x12” and ‘No Authentic Sound Left’ reel tape. It’s also the most restrained and most thematically resolute of the three, unwavering in attention to its carefully realised ambience, and small details – notably the meticulous low-end of the second and third seasons, and subtle tonal transpositions through the final season. This is faultless frozen ambient from a man who clearly knows.
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