Winter is my favorite time of year. A traditional winter scene, snow all around, covered trees, and wintery looking houses with smoke billowing out of the chimney, one of the most pleasurable images to my eyes.
It’s a thing of mystery and wonder, and a strange yet warm and familiar comfort. It’s a thing of silence and isolation. It’s a thing of atmosphere.
https://troublesalad.bandcamp.com/album/rejsekammerat
This is my own album dedicated to it. The title translates to “travel companion”. I used that isolation to create something beautiful. The songs just beckon to the Winter. I’ve put together some of my best compositions and development here. Even some electronic melodies. The closer is the highlight in my opinion. Using reworked arrangements from collaborations between Bill Laswell, Pete Namlook, and Geir Jenssen (Biosphere) to layer the others in a song with an atmosphere like no other. Tibetan field recordings from Jenssen are showcased as well. I have also featured a sinister, dark, and raw cover of the theme to the Snowhead Temple in Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
I had something in mind when I released Besvaer Salat, and cold and synthy piece of atmosphere and drone. While listening to minimal wave albums of the 80’s and noisier stuff from the modern day, I wanted to smash it all together. Less of a melodious jaunt than this, but still influential in terms of the 80’s synth sounds and minimalism. A great example of this style of music.
Croatian Amor have a very special sound. Can you think of something cold and warm all at once? A modern artist that still utilizes old school synths and drops them into a bath of lo-fi noise. This is the kind of thing I’d recommend to noise beginners.
I find it wonderful how an artist can conjure different textures of cold. This is
Alrakis, whereas you might have a winter forest feel with things like Vinterriket and Evilfeast, Alrakis has that lost in space, isolated coldness, and I’m sure space is pretty cold. When it comes to creating a lonely and cold atmosphere, he does a stellar job. Once again this is an artist burying the distorted vocals under the raw and harsh riffs. I always like to think of vocals in this vein of metal as another instrument, in combination with the music for extra atmosphere. Raw and melancholic are the guitars, riffs of sorrow and dejection. The drums are quiet but also vital to the atmosphere. It is generally slow or mid paced, unlike what you’d expect to find in black metal. It works well for this atmosphere. I think the synths on here shine with amazing melodies, the sound is way more crucial for creating the feel of this project than Vinterriket. Lo-fi riffs meld chords together creating a void of noise beneath these synths. It just all works out so well. Another incredibly immersive listen. This will draw you inside the music, it will engulf you.
With space in mind, I have to mention this. Now I’m not sure if it’s really, I’ve seen people say otherwise, but what a concept.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMB_cold_spot
A region in space even colder than the rest. Ain’t that awesome?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_(astronomy)
So, voids are a thing, a weird thing. Vast stretches of empty space containing little to no activity such as galaxies and stars. Space is nothing yeah? So, less than nothing in a void? I dunno, but it’s still just a radical concept.
Astral Silence
Astral Silence take it a bit further. Other acts feature heavy use of synths as a droning backdrop to the music, but this one takes the synths to create spacey and psychedelic textures as well. It’s a unique atmosphere, similar to Alrakis, but still in a league of it’s own.