Maschine - Maschine

Psychonavigation Records: 2011

You know who this label's reminding me of? Shadow Records. Not so much for the music style, though both clearly have a thing for genres that defined the '90s. Right, that makes all the sense with Shadow since they started in the '90s, but they carried on into the new millennium with one foot still firmly planted in the prior decade too. What I mean though, is both Shadow and Psychonavigation Records seem to love scouring their nearby lands for obscure, unheralded talent that fits their musical manifesto. Shadow was clearly in love with sounds Ninja Tune nurtured (being their short-lived American distributor didn't hurt), and Psychonavigation comes off more fond of Warp, Apollo, and other assorted seminal IDM labels. Still, this is the only similarity between the two – ain't no way an album from one or the other might share some stylistic sound. Nope, no how. Except now, brown cow.

So here’s Maschine, who’s self-titled debut on Psychonavigation Records reminds me of something Shadow Records might have put out in one of their more adventurous efforts. There’s jazzy-hop beats. There’s snazzy d’n’b rhythms. There’s deep rumbling dubby bass. There’s an undeniable inner city cool running through this album... for about the first half anyway. The back-half goes more vintage braindance territory, thus here’s your obligatory namedrops for comparison (Autechre, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher). Almost kind of a shame, if I’m honest, as I was much preferring the Amon Tobin leaning cuts from earlier in the album. Still, best of both worlds from Maschine, his tracks unique enough to stand out from a plenty overstuffed IDM market while retaining that retro ‘90s charm. Oh, we’re not allowed to called ‘90s music retro yet? C’mon, it’s been two decades; the ‘80s can’t keep hogging the word forever.

As for the man behind Maschine, Lord Discogs draws a total blank, but the liner notes provide a few tidbits of info. Mostly a live PA act headed by Eoin Coughlan and Aza Hand, though primarily fronted by Eoin at the time of this release. The jazz influences aren’t accidental either, Mr. Coughlan having been brought up in an environment surrounded by the music - his mother's apparently big on the Irish jazz scene, which is fascinating to me that such a scene even exists. Overall, Maschine sounds like the sort of act that burbles in local obscurity for years (Vancouver’s got lots of them), and likely would have remained as such had Psychonavigation not given them a little extra promotional bump. Interestingly, they retain Prime honors for the ‘Maschine’ handle at Lord Discogs. Has there seriously never been another act to use the name before Eoin and Aza entered the database? I mean, you’d think someone in the German techno scene would have claimed it in all these years. Someone with a fuller discography than this Maschine’s. Well, if not, props to you, lads. Good album too, one worth a few additional playthroughs for those days remembering when Autechre used to write melodies.

Astral Waves - Magnetique

Altar Records: 2015

I always keep forgetting this, but Astral Waves is Gabriel Descoutieras, more commonly known as DJ Zen; aka: the head of Altar Records. This isn't some scene secret or privileged information. Heck, just last year, I made mention of it in the Fire compilation review. He doesn't turn to this alias often though, so it's easy to overlook his association with it. I believe he's only released two proper albums as Astral Waves anyway, including this one. The first, Mystique, came on Monsieur Descoutieras' original print, Sunline Records. After getting Altar Records up and running, he returned with Magique, a remix album of other Altar artists. Oddly, this wasn’t made clear on the backcover, tracks listed as though they were his tracks. Um, oops? There’s also a very recent collaborative album with one flutist Aeolia called Yoga Temple, which looks to be exactly like what it says on the title. Pass on my end, thanks.

So DJ Zen doesn’t get behind the producer’s chair much, content in being a facilitator for other artists while giving them a spiffy mixdown and super-spiritualized cover art. In terms of music and talent, I’ve often mentioned Altar comes off like a little sibling of Ultimae Records, but their overseers are definitely cut from a different cloth. Aes Dana is quite prolific on his label (by Ultimae standards anyway), while DJ Zen’s much more chill. I sense a reason for that though - and oof, do I feel a bit of a cad typing it. Aes Dana just has more unique ideas worth exploring as a producer than Astral Waves.

For sure, Mr. Descoutieras is a solid producer, crafting his psy leaning chill and prog as capably as anyone on his roster. He may not kick out as much music as AstroPilot, E-Mantra, C.J. Catalizer, (Altar namedrop, etc.), but he definitely knows what works for the genre. Opener Emergence with Suduaya (France) and Sukhush (Brooklyn) (!) does the dubby bliss-out vibe with extra flute action, Le Rêve Éveillé with Sufi’s Life and Merlin (really, Lord Discogs, the fortieth Merlin?) ups the tempo into prog-psy’s domain, and Les Liens Du Sang with Aureohm (singer from Costa Rica, I think) soars in that spaced-out hippie-flail way any solid outdoor party goes. Astral Waves goes solo for the next two cuts, the happy, spritely Déploie Tes Ailes (que?) and darker groover La Danse De Elfes (ooh, I know what that one is in English!). There’s another spaced-out prog-psy cut with a rub on Androcell’s Efflorescence, plus two collaborations with Alwoods in Suntrap and L'Oiseau De l'Aube, both going more goa (acid! nice).

And yet, through all of Magnetique, I can’t help but feel this is just DJ Zen ticking off the things that makes this music work, seldom exploring it any further. There’s good tuneage here, yet with so much collaborative work, nothing I can identify as a definitive Astral Waves stylee. Maybe that’s all we need from the Altar Records curator though.

ACE TRACKS: January 2016

*sniff, sniff* What’s this I smell in the air? Is that… free CDs? Why, some friends are moving soon, and are looking to offload a little excess packaging. Most definitely I’ll be willing to take some of them for you, give them a new, comforting home. How many do you have? Thirty, eh? Mostly alternative rock… some old and new folk stuff… a little soundtrack fodder… ooh, a few key albums that I really should have in my collection. Yeah, sure, I’ll take the lot. I’m already plenty encroached within my apartment, what’s another mini-pile of discs at this point? I feel like I’m forgetting something here though, something that’ll impact my routine in the near future. Wait a second… oh, oh no! Dear God, why do I keep doing this to myself!?

Anyhow, here’s the ACE TRACKS playlist for January 2016.


Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
AuroraX - Evolutionary Journey
Dr. Octagon - Dr. Octagonecologyst
Various - Fall
ASC - Fervent Dream
Dao Da Noize - Kalam
Banco de Gaia - Last Train To Lhasa (20th Anniversary Edition)

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 5%
Percentage of Rock: 0%
Most “WTF?” Track: Anything Dr. Octagon. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hurl.

Way heavy on the ambient, atmospheric, and chill music, this one. And what does come with a beat is almost exclusively the domain of the psy scene. There’s a few sidetracks along the way – Perturbator, Dr. Octagon, Liquid Stranger kinda’ – but all these label splurges has left me a playlist of primarily similar-sounding tunes. Thank goodness for Psychonavigation Records’ freewheeling genre hopping, eh?

As such, this may just be the most cohesive sounding ‘alphabetical arrangement’ playlist I’ve done thus far. Or the most boring, if you crave dynamic mixtapes.

Banco de Gaia - Last Train To Lhasa (20th Anniversary Edition)

Disco Gecko: 2015

I swear I never intended to get this when it was announced. I mean, for as much of a Banco fanboy that I am, I do have some limits in how much I deem necessary in my music collection. The 20th Anniversary edition of Maya, that had some cool things included: alternate versions, live versions, rare extended versions, etc. However, for the same celebration of Toby Marks' most popular album, Last Train To Lhasa, I can't say the extra features were enticing selling points. An even longer version of Kincajou (Duck! Asteroid)? Pretty sure the original was pretty long enough – how many more spaced-out looping sequences can one stretch the concept out for? Ah, additional rhythmic sections at the end, turning a remarkable run of old-school ambient prog into something closer to the danced-up version heard on the Live At Glastonbury CD. Nifty, but not terribly necessary either. Then again, is thirty-five minutes-plus of Kincajou (Duck! Asteroid) necessary to begin with? Yes, yes it is.

Those extra remixes then, that featured on the first-run limited edition of Last Train To Lhasa, the 3CD version. Surely I’ve been waiting ages to hear what those sounded like. Yeah, a funny thing happened around the turn of the century. Thanks to a remarkable tube system known as the interwebs (you may be using it), finding rare musiks became exponentially easy. You bet the moment I discovered the magic of AudioGalaxy, China (Follow The Red Brick Road), Amber (Insect Intelligence), and 887 (Darkside Return) were among my first search inquiries. Aside from the surprisingly funky Amber rub though, I’ve never gotten too fussed over these versions. China’s essentially the same but with more dub effects, and 887 tries the Duck! Asteroid restructure, meandering far too much of its runtime in the process.

I suppose to give every track a new, lengthy remix, White Paint (Where’s The Runway Dub) and Last Train To Lhasa (Very Extended Ambient Mix) are added to CD3. The latter is essentially the same track as the original with a stripped-out rhythm, but with an interesting twist in the middle: the sampled chant is isolated and looped for a few measures, sounding as though emenating from loud speakers in an abandoned stone temple. Definitely lends the track some heavy poignancy hearing it in this context. Meanwhile, Marks goes full-on funky Orb with White Paint, a track I’d never thought I’d enjoy hearing played out at nineteen-plus minutes. Lots of dope sample cutting and dubby beatcraft.

Still, all this wasn’t enough to convince to splurge on this release. Then, the guest remixers were announced, and OH MY GOD, BANCO DE GAIA KNOWS ASTROPILOT??? My... how... when... whauu...! This is a pairing I’d never have even considered, yet here’s ol’ Dmitry, remixing the titular track in his typical prog psy stylee. Also a double-take moment: Alucidnation, doing a Balearic rub of White Paint. Wow, that track got all the glory in this reissue. That Andrew Heath mix of China’s quite good too.

Dao Da Noize - Kalam

Psychonavigation Records: 2012

Thirty albums in a half-decade? Hell, that's just what Lord Discogs lists as official LPs. Another twenty ‘Miscellaneous’ items fill out Dao Da Noize's discography thus far, mostly tapes and extremely-limited CDr offerings. Oddly, Kalam is included in this category, though I've no idea why. Pyschonavigation Records isn't some ultra-obscure print operating out of a Winnebago in the New Mexico desert. It's a semi-obscure label with a Dublin office drawing in ambient techno producers and IDM-leaning artists like a '90s throwback singularity. Yeah, Kalam is also a limited-run CD, but so are ninety-percent of niche genre releases now.

Clearly then, the man behind Dao Da Noize, Artem Pismenetskii, is something of a Merzbow or Muslimegauze sort, an endless source of noisy experimental music. Glancing through what Lord Discogs has on his releases (you just know there’s more thus far not entered), he has an interest in sounds from across Asia. Early work from the ye’ olde year of 2011 featured quite a few Japanese inspired productions, with a slow sojourn towards the West as time’s passed. Say, maybe he’s retracing the ancient Silk Road like Kitaro! He's released on tons of different labels too: Dark Meadow Recordings, Palemoon Productions, 4iB Records, Trap Door Tapes, Vomit Bucket Productions, Shit Noise Records, Fuck The Industry, Maniacal Hatred, Autistic Campaign, Sincope, Stront, Smell The Stench, Genetic Trance... I swear Dao Da Noize releases one thing on some backwater print, then moves on to another. Who knows how Psychonavigation Records fits into this. Maybe label head Keith Downey is a fan.

By the by, that Muslimgauze namedrop is an intentional, if awkward segue into Kalam, Mr. Pismenetskii stating it a deliberate tribute to the late Bryn Jones (he of an insane amount of output within a fifteen year timespan). Though Muslimgauze wasn’t Muslim, he did focus his muse on the sounds of Arabia (especially Palestine), overdubbing samples and recordings of the region into all manner of crusty beats, layered drone, noisy effects, and Middle Eastern tributes.

As such, Dao Da Noize gets right into it with Kalam I, tablas clunking away, distant chants in the background, and an ear-piercing attack of white noise distortion and bass dub bombs overwhelming your senses. Guess that’s what it’s like living in a war torn region. Kalam II, at twenty minutes in length, reuses many of the same elements as the first, though takes its time in developing, mostly going for dubbed-out trippiness for a while before bringing the tablas back in. The finish is more urgent in pacing, but subdued in tone. A shorter Kalam III throws in more industrial noise and children laughter, then Kalam IV grows dark and moody, very little percussion used. It’s also twenty-five minutes long, so if you like your eerie ethnic dub, you’ll dig this one.

I was surprised I liked Kalam as much as I did. Hell, when I first threw it on, I had no idea what to expect. Such fun adventures of discovery, these label splurges are.

Gel-Sol - K8ema

Psychonavigation Records: 2010

I've already used up all my Gel-Sol background preamble and tasty tidbits of trivia in the review of IZ. What else is there to talk about regarding Mr. Reichel? This is the reason I'm going through my music collection in 'Album' alphabetical order, to keep each review relatively fresh and unique without falling into repetitive grinds. Typically I have enough time and space between artist albums that I'll have dug up some new details about their career, or find a fresh angle to approach a review from. And had I had both IZ and K8ema when they were new, I wouldn’t have this problem now, an entire letter buffering me between the two albums. Right, that letter is ‘J’, the puniest letters in my collection not named ‘Q’, but at least it’d be something. Man, why couldn’t I have stumbled upon Gel-Sol way back when. I had every opportunity to do so. But nay, tech-plodstep was more pressing to review in ye’ olde age of 2008.

Fortunately, the liner notes of K8ema have provided some details I wasn't privy to going into IZ. Yeah, yeah, maybe I should have read those before writing that review, but I'm trying to maintain the illusion of writing these shortly after I play 'em.

Anyhow, both of these albums were apparently written for Mr. Reichel’s nieces, IZ for an Izabella, and this here K8ema for one Katelyn Mae. D’aww. The first, I can hear, as IZ definitely had a lot of sentimentality flowing through its various ambient pieces. K8ema, on the other hand, is stated as a natural evolution of IZ, which means more interesting compositions, though not as much pleasantness little girls might like. In fact, this album is something of a mish-mash of various jam sessions Gel-Sol engaged with other Seattle producers, often using MIDI generators in crafting long, non-looping sequences of bleeps, zoops, diddlidoos, and other unpronounceable electronic sounds. Some tracks get very near musique concrete levels of non-musicality, but they always find a core of a theme to centre around. It’s a style of songcraft that isn’t too dissimilar to the abstract pieces Tangerine Dream were performing when they first started fiddling with synthesizers (and took me a stupid amount of time to realize that).

This helps make K8ema a more engaging playthrough than the uniformly similar IZ. You still have the pleasant synth pad pieces like Abyssinia, The Mechanical Garden, and Lost, but also sci-fi weirdness in tracks like Glade and Gel S’hole. Other pieces feel that krautrock psychedelic muse a’callin’ (Halo Of Stars, Energy Pools), while others aim for blissful peace vibes (Spirit Guide, Panta Rhei). And, just to remind you that this is a dedication to a wee waif, there’s an untitled final lullaby that sounds like it’s played on a electronic toy harpsichord. Double d’aww.

Really, the whole album plays out like one long song of various electronic improvisations, constantly fooling you where a‘proper’ track ends and begins. Fans of tripped-out FSOL definitely apply within.

Gel-Sol - IZ

Psychonavigation Records: 2008

Gel-Sol is the sort of act I feel I should have crossed paths with at some point in the past. For one, he’s based out of Seattle, so I’d have seen his name on posters that associates of mine plaster on their Facebook pages. He’s contributed to the Monster Planet events, where musicians create original soundtracks to z-grade horror films of days past, and I know I’ve seen those flyers before (can’t miss that gorilla-suited space-skeleton carrying a sci-fi pulp babe in his arms). He’s released albums on Vancouver-based label Upstairs Recordings, technically including this one too. Mr. Reichel even debuted his first LP on obscure ambient print em:t, which I’ve definitely dug a little into in the past. And surely, surely, having spent the past eighteen months familiarizing myself with Psychonavigation Records, I’d have noticed the name Gel-Sol at some point. But nay, only with the label’s mass CD sale did I even take a glance, from which I now know more about Andrew Reichel than I ever thought I would. Unless he performed at one of those Sequential Circus events here and I totally missed that too. Smack me upside the head if so.

IZ is Gel-Sol’s third album (so sayeth Lord Discogs), and it’s a pure ambient affair. Yes, another one. I’m sure going through a lot of these right now. Where’s the funk in my music gone, a bouncy groove, even a plodding step? Well, no, I don’t think I’ll ever forlorn for that, but it sure feels like I’ve gone forever without a solid beat seducing my synapses, despite two recent reviews telling me otherwise. Still, I may need to start raiding other genres for a while. How’s jungle been lately?

Not to sell IZ short, as this too is a finely crafted album of ambient, and does have unique characteristics compared to all the other albums I’ve recently covered. Gel-Sol has something of an old-school fetish with the music he makes, taking inspirations from ancient synth wizard noodling and krautrock weirdness. IZ is mostly in the former category, lengthy passages of bright pads floating along with field recordings of outdoor parks, rainfall, and other sounds you might hear on the commute in Seattle. Yeah, I’m definitely getting that West Coast vibe off IZ, and tracks with titles like Mourning Wok, Disko Bay, Secret Island, and Orca sure aren’t helping in distancing that association. This is the sort of album that could have appeared on Silent Season, had anyone known much of them in 2008. Makes me wonder why Mr. Reichel didn’t get in touch with them, though perhaps Psychonavigation Records provided him with a more appropriate outlet for the music he prefers making.

I’d detail more, but man, I’m so burnt out on all this ambient lately, I’m at a loss for fresh adjectives. See why I prefer keeping my palette varied? This obviously isn’t helpful to someone reading this in the future though, so here: good ambient, check out, move on.

Chronos - Helios

Altar Records: 2013

Not to let AstroPilot hog all the ‘ambient via inspiration of suns and stars’ glory on Altar Records, here’s Chronos tossing his offering into the concept as well. Maybe everyone on the label will have their opportunity at some point. Heck, after he’s finished with his ‘Seasons’ series, DJ Zen should start up one based on celestial bodies within our solar system, thus letting all the regulars have their crack at Sol ambient. Then they could move onto the planets, which Chronos would have no problem pitching in since his other Altar albums centered on Mars and Venus. Plus, he’d have to compile the ‘Saturn’ CD – it’d only be appropriate. Not sure who’d want to do ‘Uranus’ though (hey’o ...sorry).

Anyhow, after namedropping Nikita Klimenko’s project for a while now, I’m tackling an actual full-length album from the guy. Just a shame it had to be Helios, hardly the most representative LP under the Chronos banner. That’d be like starting discussion of AstroPilot with Solar Walk III. However, for all the material he’s contributed to Altar compilations, Mr. Klimenko hasn’t made the label his permanent home either, jumping around other prints like Ajana Records, Aventuél, and most recently Mystic Sound Records. He’s dabbled in many forms of the psy chill and trance market, and while he’s made an ambient track or four in his time, this is his first pure beatless outing for an LP.

Well, not quite ‘beatless’. The middle portion of Helios does feature rhythms of a sort, just not in the traditional psy chill manner. Rotating Light Circles has very brisk, subdued breakbeats, more akin to Berlin-School era sequencers than anything intended for the raver generation. Follow-up tracks Oracul and Osiris (a collaboration with Proton Kinoun) make use of this technique as well, providing Helios with a decent amount of vitality as it plays through. It’s like the sun is reaching its zenith across its path along our sky, showering us with all the vitalizing energy pouring out of its nuclear furnace thousands of kilometers away. Hrm, that sounds like a bit of waffle when I describe it like that.

It still makes sense though. Apparently Helios was crafted in one of those short spurts of inspiration musicians have on occasion, the PR blurb proclaiming a ten day span of writing. But honestly, a concept album around the sun isn’t that difficult to conceive. You start with your morning dawn tracks that are light, airy, and meditative (Out Of Chaos, Moon Through A Lense, Deimos), the aforementioned ‘energetic’ tracks marking the midday, and darker, minimalist, reflective pieces to close out into twilight (Dolphinium, Ancient Bells). Nikita does add various samples he’d gathered during his tours abroad (India, Egypt, Moscow), giving the tracks enough personality such that Helios doesn’t lose itself in the glut of ambient’s vast ocean.

So perhaps not the most original album in Chronos’ repertoire, but a lush one nonetheless. Mr. Klimenko, he’s got some skill with them spacey synths that are worth checking out.

Martin Nonstatic - Granite

Ultimae Records: 2015

Ultimae's dipped a lot of toes and waded plenty of shores with dub techno in recent years, but surprisingly this is their first full-length album of the stuff. What, couldn’t Lars Leonhard have provided more than a couple of singles? Is his LP output contractually bound to BineMusic? That hasn’t stopped Martin Nonstatic from popping up on various labels. Okay, he hasn’t had as lengthy of a career as ol’ Lars, but he too made his full-length break with BineMusic some fifteen months prior. Before that, he was releasing scattered digital singles on labels like Silent Season, Dewtone Recordings, Subspiele Records, Deeptakt, and Kunst Musik. Stop me if you aren’t getting a serious Deutschland vibe yet.

Granite is Martin Nonstatic’s debut for Ultimae though, and the label’s only showing for new artist albums in the year 2015. Like that Digiseeds compilation, it came way late too, marking these past twelve months among their leanest ever for new music. Man, where are the veterans lately? Only Aes Dana’s teamed up with MikTek for a pair of EPs, but then I suppose ol’ Vir’s been busy giving all his early stuff another studio spit shine for the FLAC audiences. What I find most remarkable about Nonstatic’s entry here is this is the first new artist LP on Ultimae since MikTek’s debut with the label nearly three years ago. Not that Ultimae has an air of exclusivity in who they invite into their roster, but it’s certainly a rare occurrence when it does happen.

As for Nonstatic (real last name: van Rossum), yeah he’s a downtempo dub techno guy. Lord Discogs suggests if you like DeepChord, you’ll like Martin. Can’t argue on that front, but as there are so many downtempo dub techno guys out there, why should you spring for another? Because Ultimae reps him, obviously.

I know the label’s skewing away from psy chill into these grey tones hasn’t been the most popular of choices from older followers – I’ve spoken of it myself, missing brighter melodies or pulsing trance rhythms of yore’. And while Granite does have the odd sprinkling of melody complementing a steady beat, this is still dub techno we’re dealing with, where everything remains subdued in service of exploring all that staticky space between the timbre of bass throbs, electric guitar strums, and distant pads. But if all my years of sipping the Ultimae herbal tincture have taught me anything, it’s that such music is best served when the Ultimae Mixdown™ is at work.

Still, I can’t deny a difficult time getting Granite to stick in my head. Heck, I’ve sometimes forgotten about the darn CD, especially with the avalanche of discs currently occupying my backlog. Nor is this an album that’ll convince you on dub techno either, though fans of the stuff will definitely appreciate all that lush space Ultimae creates in their headphones.

And that’s why I’m currently entranced by the sounds of this album as they swirl over my earholes.

Galati - Gletscher

Tranquillo Records: 2015

For some stupid reason, every time I try and say Gletscher, it's always done in an awful Schwarzenegger accent. How does that even make sense? Roberto Galati, the man behind this double-LP, is Italian, as unique a language as any European dialect. What does 'gletscher' even mean? *does the Googoling* Oh, it's the German word for 'glacier', commonly referring to ice flows near the Tyrol region of The Alps, where northern Italy and western Austrian meet. And Ah'nold is Austrian. So, despite Gletscher being produced by an Italian, saying this album's title in an awful Schwarzenegger accent does make sense after all. Well, no, it doesn't, but that's my English for you, always mocking other languages with our too-many wordses.

So Mr. Galati is something of a post-rock ambient guy. This means plenty of droning guitar tones and distortion with his layered synths. He also has quite the fascination with frozen landscapes, previous albums Floe Edge and Godhavn inspired by treks across Greenland wastes and the like. Even his last CD with Psychonavigation Records, Mother, has a cover collage of various frozen features (alpine peaks, tarn, ice-covered cave entrances... maybe). I guess naming this LP straight-up ‘glacier’ would have been too obvious then, but at least I’m getting some serious Geir Jenssen vibes from all this background research.

Gletscher is also one of those drone albums that’s almost impossible to detail. Galati goes for the wall-of-sound approach to the craft, stacking harmonic layers to such a degree they’re almost crushing your senses. Everything moves ve-e-r-ry slow too, though at least we have a sense of progression through these tracks, that we’re taking in a vista rather than sitting static for a length of time. I’m tempted to call this ‘epic drone’, because it sure feels like my very being is being confronted, forcing me into humbling reverence to the soundscapes Galati’s challenging me with. It’s at once exhilarating and exhausting, and definitely not the sort of ambient music suited for naps or a session at the massage parlour.

Aside from the two bookend pieces on both CDs, these tracks are surprisingly short for drone, none breaking the nine-minute mark. It makes the need for two discs seem a bit suspect since most of them probably could have fit on just one, but then I guess you’d have to jettison the nineteen-minute closer Shelkar Chorten. On the other hand, these relatively shorter pieces helps keep Gletscher engaging as it plays through, each track shifting in tone just enough so we’re not stuck in one mood for long. Hopar has a calming through-line, then Gharesa goes discordant. Something resembling a wide-screen melody pierces the drone in Siachen 1, while Kiattuut comes off more atonal. Hispar (everlasting night) is rather quiet and subdued, and Godwin-Austen features chattering harmonic strings with a lovely bit of sombre melody.

Gletscher isn’t an easy album to get into – really, only fans of drone should apply. Boy, did it ever make for some intense bus commutes though.