CD - Glacial Movements
The Netherworld project, supported by the Roman producer Alessandro Tedeschi (founder of the label Glacial Movements), has traditionally been characterized by ambient sounds both isolationist and ethereal. Now the road is open to a narration that assumes more sensitive and fascinating insertions. The textures seem less abstract than in the past but field recordings still peek out alongside intense violin work, synthetic loops and discovered sounds. The pieces progress in fascinating and sinuous directions, while the sound-design unravels in an equally refined way - less austere than in Tedeschi's former works, perhaps due to the producer's many collaborations over the years, which have helped to refine his sensitivity and dilute the excesses of minimalism. Circular harmonizations, pulses and percussive sound emergencies fit together with more subdued drones and soft eddies that are filtered and calibrated, united in slow and solemn tempi. In "Crystallized Words" we can also discern vocal fragments, while in other tracks there are a diversity of fluctuations and manipulations that come from natural sources. In the same way there's an extensive use of external multi-effects that succeed in expanding and twisting the sound in new shapes. The artwork, too, is the result of an intangible reductionist quality, not by chance commissioned to Bjarne Riesto, a specialist of Nordic photography, perfectly aligned with the spirit of this album.
Aurelio Cianciotta