Hailing from Helsinki, Finland, sound artist Hannu Karjalainen creates low-key sonic pictures that, as the title suggests, drift along icy currents of sculpted synth and treated field recordings.
Even though the seven compositions that make up this album are free of much discernable form or structure, this is not an ambient album made for passive listening. Each glacially shifting soundscape is rich in texture and detail, the mixing telling as much of a story as the notes in some cases; much is said in the interplay between volume and frequency on "That Obscured Object," in particular.
Elsewhere, such as album closer "The Nile," Hannu relies on more traditionally composed ambient beauty, letting a simple and elegant piano piece sing its tune with the minimal accompaniment of carefully considered reverb and other barely perceptible, but integral sonic minutiae. Frequency aficionados should find much to freak out about on Drift and it contains plenty of surface beauty for casual listeners to hear and depth of sound to feel.
(Kingdoms)Even though the seven compositions that make up this album are free of much discernable form or structure, this is not an ambient album made for passive listening. Each glacially shifting soundscape is rich in texture and detail, the mixing telling as much of a story as the notes in some cases; much is said in the interplay between volume and frequency on "That Obscured Object," in particular.
Elsewhere, such as album closer "The Nile," Hannu relies on more traditionally composed ambient beauty, letting a simple and elegant piano piece sing its tune with the minimal accompaniment of carefully considered reverb and other barely perceptible, but integral sonic minutiae. Frequency aficionados should find much to freak out about on Drift and it contains plenty of surface beauty for casual listeners to hear and depth of sound to feel.