Rapoon — Time Frost

For  me Time Frost is the first fully realized release from the Glacial Movements label  that  fulfils  the labels remit of supplying  ambience and sound work that conjures up vast frozen deserts, shifting ice continents and the loneliness and beauty of artic climes.

The album uses tiny elements from an iconic European classical composition  Johan Strauss’s Blue Danube and the resulting  5 tracks start off sounding like a less timeworn  and more lush William Basinski  compositions made from looped and stuck string elements that really capture the awe inspiring feeling of sailing  over vast white frozen dunes of a snow desert, or swooping & diving into mile deep ice cannons.  As the album progress the tracks  slowly  become more blown by freezing winds and seemly  cracked by  lying  in arctic climate too long- their melodic loops less defined  and the tones seem to become more muffled  and stretched out. It also seems to hint at  a darker quality as if the  sun setting on freezing landscapes. By the last track ice whispers, the longest here at near on 35 minutes - the arctic wind and deep stretched-out tones have all but replaced the melodic, lush elements- the drone textures still just hovering with melodic touches, but with now with a  much darker hues. The track really  conjures up  such a tangible feeling of solitude, chilling wonder and vastness of iced and frozen land mass.

Certainly the best thing this relatively new label has released thus far & one of the ambient highlights of this year.