After a
number of limited CD-R releases on the Umbra and Penunmbra label’s,
Netherworld is back with his debut full-length album, ‘Mørketid’
which is released in a 500 album run, by specialist Italian label,
Glacial Movements.
‘Mørketid’
is a Norwegian term that indicates a certain period in the year
when the Arctic winter cold encases everything and the sun doesn’t
rise over the horizon. On the face of it, ‘Mørketid’
is a very sparse and airy album with an unhurried and naturally
formed aesthetic. It could be said that it is extreme ambience.
Dig deeper though and there is quite a lot going on underneath
the deep permafrost exterior. The opener ‘Dreaming Arctic
Expanses’ provides a ‘slowed-to-the-core’ image
of amorphous shards of sonic debris drifting in and out of focus
whilst the follow up, ‘New Horizons’ gradually envelops
around the listener with its involving and atmospheric textures
and whispered vocal snippets. The repetitive and perpetual nature
of this track leaves the listener hypnotised and unaware of constraints
such as space and time.
The title
track is a suffocatingly slow-paced piece of sonic-ultrachill
which utilises deftly crafted micro-tones and industrial scrapage.
With ‘Jøkel’, the rhythmic swells start to
gather energy and increase whilst micro-melodies start to flutter
about before dying a frosty death. ‘North Pole’ is
a far darker piece featuring subtle but piercing shots of treble
heavy sound over soft but rumbling bass tremors, ghostly voice
samples and minuscule industrial grazing. The elements coalesce
to give a hypnotic effect that will captivate the listener. The
closing track plays dark against light with murky and cavernous,
submerged bass tones pitched against ebbing swells of ethereal
sound. A high-pitched tone runs in the foreground and serves to
keep the listener dazed yet ‘channeled-into’ proceedings.
‘Mørketid’
is an album composed using short fragments of live-sounds found
in the Arctic area and these have been documented, sampled and
then completely transformed into a captivating and glacial ambient
soundscape which has the power to seep into the listener’s
mindset and take hold for 59 minutes. As with all good dark-ambient
music, I was left slightly numb after listening to ‘Mørketid’
as my listening room was rapidly transformed into an inhospitable
and isolated Arctic tundra. One of the main reasons for this was
the deliberately unhurried pace which forces the listener to give
the sound their full attention.
For fans of: Biosphere, Lull, Sleep Research Facility
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