Feu Follet & Miina Virtanen — The Icicle Lectures Vol. 1

In a sense this is the antithesis to the Bexar Bexar album I reviewed earlier. That album conveyed the feeling of chilling out on an afternoon, after a burning hot day. This album is more of a chill, but equally soothing.

As the title suggest the atmosphere is icey and cold. After a lonely flute which introduces opening track Silence Thoughts II we'll get to meet the tender pianoplaying of Miina. Minimal and moving in cycles this first track is basically a solo piano piece. Along the course of the second, much longer, title track the piano gets treated by electronics. While the piano tinkers on in a cyclic fashion, Tobias Fischer (Feu Follet) echoes, processes and morphs the sounds to add to the atmosphere of sparkling ice-crystals, calm and serene, like sitting in the halls of an icecave.

The Finnish/German combination presented here works very well, and taking the "vol. 1" from the title we'll probably see more of them in the future. With this first CDr-release they sure start on a good foot with an interesting mix of contemporary composed music, ambient and a mild sense of drone.