Ulv — Stille Storm

My first listening to the this album by Ulv left me feeling like there was almost no sound on the disk, but I later found that "Stille Storm" is not actually quite as minimal as first impression may convince one it is. 

The album is simply mastered at a very low volume.  If you turn it up (all the way up), this album is full of beautiful, bassy underwater sound somewhat comparable to a more minimal Thomas Koner with increased emphasis on the bass.  It's got the same cold, monochromatic feel, but is infused with a certain woodsy, supernatural essence unknown to Koner.  Reverb and slow pulsation detail the topography of the grey sea bottom passing slowly beneath.  This is a realm of deep quiet, but there are plenty of inhabitants if you train your ears.  The presentation perfectly suits the sound itself - sparse, barely legible black text on a black background.  The CD is, of course, also black.

The pieces are remarkably easy to distinguish from each other considering the style:

The opening track. "Het Begint" is the quietest piece, with the least decipherable sounds.  It's almost over before you realize it's playing.  It feels like accidentally created sound; it is similar to the bassy ruffling noise produced by bumping into or touching a microphone while it is recording, run through a pleasant, rhythmic reverb overlayed.

The 9 minute "Al Het Leven Verdwijnt" is especially Koner-esque, but leaves even more to the imagination.  Occasionally present are sounds Koner would never use...  near the end of the track is a bizarre, muffled noise that could just as easy be the cry of an animal as a synthesizer.

"Bij Heldere Hemel" utilizes lightly distorted noise textures and wails mangled and degraded into soft crackling - they sound as if they are struggling to exist.  Also present is a meaty, synthy bass tone that enters and exits, leaving gulfs of space between.

For the 4th track "Windvaan" Munk explores timbres just a stone's throw from Japanese sound sculptor Aube, though this music is much more freeform.  For this track and the final "Eindsalvo", Munk allows some whistling, fragile, white mid and high frequencies into the mix.  Structurally, "Windvaan" is one continuing, ritualized pulsation, and creates a magickally charged space beautifully.  The muffled crumpling sounds from the third and first tracks linger on here, pushed even further to the background and reprocessed into even softer rumblings.

The near silent opening minutes of "Zwijgzaam" sound like the distant groans of a massive sea behemoth restrained somewhere beneath the listener in the invisible depths.  Halfway through the 9 minutes of the song, the whole sound space begins to swirl with a kind of chaotic current, which lulls and returns in force many times before the end.

I read a description of this artist saying that headphones are required.  This is 100% true.  The music is heavily panned, and very few speakers could handle the lowest frequencies of this mix.  I have never found a listening of this album on speakers satisfying...

I can honestly say that prior to acquiring "Stille Storm", there was nothing quite like it in my collection, despite my owning more than a hundred ambient albums.  Somehow, despite the limited sound palette, that pagan wildness of ritual dark ambient filters through into this music, and is more convincing than ever.  It is a dark album in that it is clearly lightless, but in the end it is simply mysterious, rather than threatening or depressive, and is thus more listenable to me.  This is one of my favorite ambient releases I've heard this year, and the one that most obviously stands out, followed by Robert Rich's "Ylang".