Glacial Movements

Uma das várias frentes de desenvolvimento musical do sempre hiper-activo Mick J. Harris foi, no início dos 90s, o seu projecto Lull. Coexistindo com os Scorn numa época em que estes poliam o seu som rumo ao ambientalismo dub, Lull ficava já no território da ausência dos beats, e das estranhas canções de embalar que o nome sugere nasceram paisagens desoladas e inóspitas. Este sub-género do ambient foi na época adjectivado de isolationist, e os Lull, com os três álbuns que editaram na conceituada Sentrax entre 1992 e 1994, ajudaram a definir o género. Desde então, a sua produção tornou-se mais espaçada, já que Mick Harris foi dando mais importância a outros projectos. A última vez que se ouviu falar de Lull foi há sete anos, num disco dividido com Origami Arktika, se descontarmos as duas compilações posteriormente editadas na Manifold. É portanto com uma certa surpresa que se assiste ao regresso de Lull, apesar do isolacionismo estar novamente na ordem do dia. Like A Slow River é um trabalho de atmosferas frias e minimais, seguramente o mais frio e sombrio trabalho até agora editado por Mick Harris. Os títulos dos temas e o grafismo do digipak sugerem um imenso rio que transporta lentamente enormes blocos de gelo, com a correspondente ilustração sonora destinada a provocar no ouvinte uma letargia hipotérmica. As faixas são cinco variações sobre o mesmo tema e têm claras semelhanças entre si, construídas sobre drones profundos, com a adição de estratos preenchidos por ressonâncias, vibrações, cadências e outras texturas sonoras que dão a necessária diversidade. Umas vezes mais deep-space, como em "Whiteout" e "The Sheet", outras mais industrial, como em "Like A Slow River" e "Treeless Grounds", ou ainda completamente alienígena, como em "Illusion Of Unbroken Surface", este é um álbum indispensável que traz Lull de volta a um jogo no qual é mestre.

I Don't recommend necking a spicy pot noodle in this sticky weather. I just did it just then and totally regretted it.... This ice cool Lull CD should cool me off. Lull is an alias of Mick Harris of Scorn ex-napalm death and a whole load of other obscure aliases. Mick Harris fuckinf rules and that is a fact. 'Like A Slow River' is a smart collection of isolationist drones and eerie ambient sounds that recall a cold arctic wind. Very mysterious sounding and very subtle in its execution the howling breeze gently whispers and hovers above glacial shimmering tones. The artwork is very fitting and compliments the sounds perfectly. Quality gear and highly recommended. I don't make a habit of eating pot noodles by the way... "

It is hard to imagine that there's a direct link between Napalm Death and extreme 'isolationist' ambient. But there is, and ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick (MJ) Harris is the linking pin. As Scorn he has created post-industrial dub (working with Bill Laswell, among others), and as Lull he has createst some of the deepest, abstract ambient imaginable.
"Like a Slow River" - the well-named new Lull CD - is released on Glacialmovements, which strongly associates this music with shifting desolate plains of ice (as do the beautiful coverphotos). But listening to the music also evokes associations with dark, slowly moving clouds indicating extreme heavy weather coming. The best you can do is lie down and surrender...
The music on the 5 tracks (one hour total) resembles some of the best work of Thomas Köner. "Like a slow river" should not be missed by those of you interested in this kind of dark, desolate sound.

Glacial Movements – I wondered how long a label could sustain its existence based upon a singular aesthetic theme, exploiting desolate, glacial atmospherics in a regular stream of releases. Yet, defying all my expectations, Glacial Movements has not only survived in these difficult economic times, but has actually thrived. I have watched them with interest, emerging from anonymity, and fledgling beginnings that demonstrated a flawed, but passionate approach, to now attracting one of the Isolationism /Dark Ambience scene’s elder statesmen, Mick Harris of LULL.

The label now has a premier artist on its roster, and the packaging and design of “Like a Slow River” does justice to the sheer quality of this release. Harris infuses glorious and resonant precision into his work, with the soft focus shimmering atmospherics of “Whiteout”, and “The Sheet”, there is a sense of foreboding throughout, and we are immediately plunged into a bleak and desolate soundscape that rivals the work of Lustmord or Thomas Koner. The title track, and indeed each subsequent piece, deploys a serene, eerie fabric of sound, rich and reverberant tonalisms, time –dilated and expansive tracts, imbued with Arctic silence, and haunting ambience.

There are no end of descriptive words that can be employed to describe these soundscapes, most of which are used [perhaps over-used] on a regular basis, so without labouring the point any further this is an important release, marking a time and a place, defining and crystallising the label’s whole aesthetic in a singular masterful release. Go and Buy Now. BGN

Mick Harris' latest release as Lull is a quiet and stately album, the sounds at times being barely above a whisper, a state of affairs entirely in keeping with the motivating philosophy behind the Italian label Glacial Movements i.e., making us aware of the paradoxically fragile strength and crystalline beauty of the polar regions before it’s too late.

The sussurating washes gently ebb and flow in frozen cadence, just like a floe-laden river in the Arctic, while simultaneously deep bass rumbles just on the edge of hearing run like submarine currents beneath the ice-bedecked surface. Riding the surface are the keening howls of biting winds and the hollow windings of tunnel-blown air. Those bass currents run fathoms deep while the frail ice above grinds and cracks between the walls of snow-bright chasms, reflecting pristine sunlight back into the cold depths of space. Just like the slow Arctic rivers too, this is in no particular hurry to get anywhere. Time in a place like this doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, where the accumulation of snow and ice forming the sculptural glaciers and cliffs took slow incremental millennia measured in millimeters, a place where an entire continent has the patience of geology. This is deep time, a time that bears no reference to the human; likewise its beauty, a quality forever beyond the reach of all but the most determined explorer, even in the 21st century. In perhaps an accidental coincidence (or perhaps, as is likely, a case of reading too much into things), each of the tracks gets progressively shorter and shorter, ranging from 14:33 down to 4:39, in a reflection perhaps of how the southern and northern continents, that have slowly evolved and remained practically static over the millennia are now, suddenly, due to our ignorance and ill-conceived environmental blindness, becoming compromised and fast disppearing—a slight conceit on my part maybe but nevertheless I feel it an observation worth pointing out.

Harris calls forth frozen atmospheres and ice-bound river and landscapes, shimmering reverberations trapped in water become clear glacial amber, and there to remain for untold years. Mirroring insects trapped in real amber, these are moments in time and slivers of the past, forever destined to play out their last moments in an endlessly abrupt memorial. These are both temporal and physical shards, meandering into the mysterious heart of inaccessibility; one gets the feeling that buried deep within the crystalline bosom of the polar continents is a similarly frozen secret, a deep secret that is known only to the ice and snow, and is whispered to the winds in the language of the slow rivers of ice. An icily haunting and ghostly ambience pervades each of these five pieces, almost akin to a physical presence that itself seems to hide secrets, ghosts endlessly wandering the wastes of the white desert searching for the frozen secret at the heart of a continent.

I have thoroughly enjoyed each of the five releases from Glacial Movements; label-owner Alessandro Tedeschi has a keen ear for the glacial and deeply icy in ambient music, and once again he has hit the spot with this CD from Harris. Yet again here is another imagining of the snowbound lands lying at the ends of the earth, and once again it succeeds in conjuring and evoking pristine images of mountainous bright eye-piercing white and over-arching azure blue, set amidst the foam-flecked lashings of the surrounding oceans. Deep ambience has always been my thing, and in my view it can't get any deeper than this: timeless frozen music for a timeless frozen place.

Written by Simon Marshall-Jones

Quarta uscita per l’etichetta romana dedicata all’ambient isolazionista Glacial Movements, sempre più intraprendente, non solo sotto l’aspetto della cura degli eleganti packaging delle sue produzioni ma anche e soprattutto sotto quello della rinomanza degli artisti proposti.

Come già nel caso di Rapoon, anche stavolta l’etichetta ideata e diretta da Alessandro “Netherworld” Tedeschi ospita un nome che non ha bisogno di presentazioni per ciò che concerne il suo universo musicale di riferimento. Sotto il moniker Lull, infatti, il poliedrico artista inglese Mick Harris (Scorn, Painkiller, Napalm Death) prosegue le sue esplorazioni di territori ambientali di densità magmatica, qui coniugata con quella, tematica e dedicata ai ghiacci perenni, che connota tutte le interessanti produzioni firmate Glacial Movements.
Iconografia e titolo dell’album ne identificano già a sufficienza il contenuto, definito da Harris in quattro lunghe composizioni (ben oltre i dieci minuti l’una) e in una sorta di più concisa coda finale, tutte improntate alla creazione di un flusso sonoro che si muove con lentezza ma in modo inesorabile, evocando trasformazioni geologiche sofferte e movimenti sotterranei cristallizzati sotto una superficie ghiacciata.

La musica che ne risulta può sembrare in apparenza altrettanto statica, ma così non è, in quanto Haris, con i suoi drone costanti, immersi in cupe torsioni catturate al rallentatore, rende alla perfezione l’idea di lento scorrimento sottesa al concept di questo lavoro.
E nonostante le composizioni di Harris rasentino spesso un “grado zero”, in cui la musica è spogliata da qualsiasi accenno armonico, il loro effetto ottundente è temperato e nel contempo posto in risalto da modulazioni molteplici, non certo intese al conseguimento di una levigatezza sonora ma anzi aspre e niente affatto accomodanti.

Pur in siffatto contesto, Harris evita tuttavia derive di eccessiva oppressione, ammantando i suoi sofferti drone di un’eleganza visionaria, talora paragonabile a quella di Basinski e perfettamente descrittiva della stratificazioni glaciali cui il lavoro è dedicato.
“Like A Slow River” è nient’altro che un’ora di musica dal fascino inquieto, che segna il ritorno di un artista di rilievo assoluto, adesso impegnato nella “fusione a freddo” di sonorità profonde e a loro modo brulicanti di vita. E se anche la contorta afasia di queste composizioni potrà difficilmente riscontrare apprezzamento al di fuori degli appassionati del genere, il loro ibernato movimento può almeno fungere da cura omeopatica per ogni incipiente calura estiva.

Przyznam szczerze, że zaczynałem się obawiać o Glacial Movements - młodą włoską wytwórnię ukierunkowaną na wydawanie tzw. arktycznego ambientu. Wyraźnie widać było tendencję spadkową w kolejnych wydawanych materiałach. Jednakże moje wątpliwości zostały właśnie rozwiane. Otóż pojawił się album nie lepszy, lecz wyjątkowy.
Mick Harris odpowiedzialny m.in. za projekt Lull (artysta gra również pod nazwą Scorn, gdzie prezentuje różnego rodzaju połamane industrialne rytmy) powraca w świetnej formie.
Omawiany przeze mnie krążek wyróżnia się znacznie na tle innych pozycji z gatunku glacial ambient. Przede wszystkim nie jest to album spokojny, przy którym można „odpłynąć” i zrelaksować się. „Like a slow river” jest niesamowicie mroczną, chłodną i konkretną produkcją. Od początku do końca atakuje nas bardzo niskimi strukturami dźwięku rodem z gatunku drone ambient. Teoretycznie na pierwszy "rzut ucha” nic tu wielkiego się nie dzieje Jednak atmosfera albumu jest niesamowita. Słuchając tej płyty można odnieść wrażenie, że czas się jakby zatrzymuje. Lód spowija rzeczywistość. Następuje cisza. Śnieżna pustynia. Natura umiera, nie ma zwierząt, drzew, ptaków. Wszystko umarło i zamarzło. I nie zanosi się na to, aby cokolwiek się zmieniło. A czemu? Ponieważ do tej płyty jest w standardzie dodawana funkcja „repeat”. Słuchałem tego albumu chyba z 8 razy w ciągu 2 dni. Magia tej płyty jest trudna do opisania. Działa na mnie nawet teraz, w chwili, gdy to piszę; a za oknem słońce smaży wszystko i wszystkich. Muszę przyznać, że dawno nie słyszałem tak autentycznej, ilustracyjnej muzyki. Na ten moment jest to jedna z ciekawszych pozycji ambientowych 2008 roku. Gorąco, a raczej „zimno” polecam.

KAOS EX MACHINA

"Every rose has its thorns" and in the same vein, every musician known for his deep beats and opressive atmospheres has a soft side. In the case of Scorn's Mick Harris, his soft side is Lull.

Lull has been active more or less since 1991. Compared with his output under Scorn, Lull's discography is modest; but despite that there are some releases on impressive and most appreciated labels like Relapse/Release and Manifold Records. And now on the also mostly appreciated Glacial Movements.

The intensely layerd ambient drones on this nicely packaged CD are cut into five tracks; Four longer ones inbetween 10 and 15 minutes and a short - slightly superfluous - final fifth. Descriptive code-words for these tracks could be spooky, guitar drones, ambience, deep, really deep, and perhaps fairytales.

The titles will explain the 'fairytale' aspect a bit better: 'Whiteout', 'The Sheet', 'Treeless Grounds', 'Illusion Of Unbroken Surface', and offcourse the title-track 'Like A Slow River'. Descriptive stories of a world covered in snow, where footmarks of snowbunnies and a lost polar bear break the absolute silence.

Yet another very nice release by a very nice artist. Good for swampy summer evenings which will melt the snow away and let the river stream just a bit harder ...

Band: Lull(int)
Label: Glacial Movements
Genre: ambient (ambient / soundscapes / ritual / drones)
Type: cd
Grade: 7.6
Review by: Bauke

Come un fiume lento e come il lento fluire di un fiume, per l’appunto, lento si muovono le cinque tracce (quattro sufficientemente lunghe, pur se adeguate al genere di appartenenza, e una, la conclusiva ‘Illusion Of Unbroken Surface’, di soli 4’ e 31”) che riportano in vita il nome di Lull. Infatti, se si escludono un paio di raccolte e un disco condiviso con Origami Arktika (mi riferisco a ‘Brook’) erano ben dieci anni, ovvero da quando vide la luce ‘Moments’, per la mitica Release Entertainment, che il maestro Mick Harris non ci degnava di un nuovo lavoro con la sua creatura isolazionista in senso ambient. E il fatto che l’album venga rilasciato per mezzo della Glacial Movements vi deve fornire un’ulteriore indicazione circa quelle che sono le suggestive immagini, evocate dall’ascolto di ‘Like A Slow River’, di corpi (non umani) solidi e ghiacciati abbandonati a se stessi in una deriva infinita nel mare che si muove tra i naturali muri bianchi del circolo polare artico. Chiaro che le composizioni siano veicolo perfetto di un senso di profonda desolazione (in ciò supportate dal clima di oscurità trasparente che le avvolge), ma hanno anche valenza quale strumento di introspettiva analisi interiore di natura sonora, figlia di riverberi raggelanti e di scostamenti di drone che simulano masse gravitazionali colte sul punto di morire e che stanno esalando, a modo loro, un ultimo e flebile respiro. Al limite dell’udibile, seppur materico. Da queste parti fa molto freddo, un freddo che congela le ossa, ma soprattutto la mente.

I've got to say, quickly before I properly start: Wow! Mick Harris finally back with a Lull album and it's a superb piece of work. 4 pieces that flow together and create a soothing, yet strangely edgy feel. Starting off with barely a whisper, the tracks grow into full formed ambient drifts, shifting slowly with ebbs and flows and a beautiful atmosphere. There's an undercurrent of darkness, which works with the subtle melodic drone. A brilliant release and a real string to the bow of the excellent Glacial Movements label. Recommended, particularly for those that enjoy deep ambient.

Le recensioni iniziano sempre così, come un mantra: “Mick Harris-Napalm Death-Scorn-Painkiller”. Subito si crea un rispettoso silenzio.

Lull è il nome col quale Mick realizza musica ambientale. Laddove con Scorn si concentra (a modo suo) sul beat, con Lull pensa alla creazione di un paesaggio sonoro, portando in ogni caso alle estreme conseguenze quella tendenza all’immobilità e all’atemporalità già percepibile nel primo progetto. Da qui, dopo un periodo di latenza, il rientro su Glacial Movements, etichetta il cui manifesto è pubblicare dischi di soundscapes “polari”. Lo slow river di Harris scorre nello stesso letto di Stealth (2007), ultima uscita a nome Scorn, perché l’impostazione è la medesima, pur nella diversità: essere il più possibile scarni, spogli, ridotti all’osso. Da chi è stato così innovativo e influente ci si può aspettare qualche nuova sorpresa, ma – dopo anni – ha senso anche uno scavo in uno dei due o tre sottogeneri di cui è padre. Like A Slow River, infatti, cerca di essere il più semplice e profondo possibile: suoni portati sulle frequenze più basse e divenuti drone, più un numero ristretto di suoni su frequenze più alte a screziare la superficie, infine l’attenzione a suggerire movimenti lentissimi e millenari, con qualche smottamento più brusco, quasi inquietante in uno scenario così statico. Solo la quinta traccia, giustamente intitolata “Illusion Of Unbroken Surface”, evidenzia correnti non sotterranee, scuotendo proprio alla fine del viaggio un ascoltatore del tutto ipnotizzato e risucchiato in un vuoto gelido.

Non occorre nemmeno scrivere che si tratta di un cosiddetto “must have”.

AUDIODROME

"It’s been a long, strange trip for Mick Harris. Once upon a time he was the drummer with Napalm Death, (in)famous for compacting heavy metal into super-concentrated tracks of sometimes just a few seconds duration. But he’s gone to the other extreme with his dark ambient project Lull. Like a Slow River is his eight or ninth album under this name, and it’s a challenging listen. Five tracks are listed on this 60 minute outing, but it might as well be one long suite, as the pieces all sound more or less the same. This disc exists in a hinterland somewhere between music and noise - there’s no rhythm, harmony, or melody - and yet… If it’s noise, it’s not confrontational in the style of Whitehouse et al. It’s the aural equivalent of standing on a hill, listening to the sound of the wind, looking out across a bleak, barren landscape - and in fact one of the tracks is titled ‘Treeless Grounds’. The overall sound is reminiscent of Thomas Koner (and indeed Lull & Koner shared space on Virgin’s groundbreaking Ambient 4: Isolationism CD back in 1994), but not as austere. Lull is unlikely to ever find himself on the cover of glossy magazines, but the few people who do buy this release will savour it, the way you would an expensive bottle of wine.

Ewan Burke"

Mick Harris who has been composing isolationist ambient music as Lull since 1992 must feel right at home at Glacial Movements Records - a label that has rapidly made a name for itself by specializing in releasing exactly this style of ambient music. Following a few years of silence, Lull makes a impressive return with the release of Like A Slow River.

For me, Mick Harris is one part of a trio of elders of dark ambient music. Brian “Lustmord” Williams introduced me to the genre in general, Thomas Köner made me a believer in the eerie beauty of quiet, vast, dim soundscapes, and Lull has shown me just how cold and absolutely desolate dark ambient can be. Without classics like Paradise Disowned, Permafrost, and Cold Summer, its doubtful that the genre would have the same powerful appeal to me that it has had. Just like the releasing label, Mick Harris certainly has a genuine passion for dark, brooding, isolationist ambient music and the merging of these two powerful purveyors of this genre was bound to result in something good. Every aspect of Like a Slow River reflects this fervor. Images of ice, glacial regions, and barren, windswept landscapes abound in not only in the sounds and beautiful artwork accompanying the six panel digipack but also in the suggestive track titles: Whiteout, The Sheet, Like a Slow River, Treeless Grounds, and Illusion of Unbroken Surface. Slow-moving, icy cold, iridescent drones are the rule on these five compositions whose deceivingly minimal, haunting ambiance creeps up on the listener, ever so slowly, numbing the senses and lulling the mind into a stupor.

Mick (MJ) Harris, once known for a seemingly unlikely transmigration of the musical soul from death metal to isolationist ambient, is back, after a lull, appositely, as Lull. By now Harris has attained a hallowed place in the canon of Dark Ambient, alongside the likes of Lustmord and Thomas Köner. In terms of the foundations of a sub-genre, these last-mentioned were the ones who did the heavy digging work, with Harris arriving late to benefit from a ferment of industrial-ambient and dark-drone activity in the early-90s. In fact Harris, for all his accumulated kudos, was no great pioneer, the true founder of this inverted church being Brian "Lustmord" Williams, the true High Priest of Isolationist Rituals, who was fully forged in the UK industrial flame of the early 80s. In terms of input, being brutal, a tendency he would be familiar with as ex-Napalm Death merchant, Harris brought little to the sounding table other than a mimetic ear for the spooked and the downright desolate, sprung from a harsh audio-sensibility allied to a soundscaping skill which enabled him to find something aesthetically pleasing in the deepest and darkest recesses of the Muse's expression, most clearly seen on 1994's isolationist classic, Cold Summer.

And so to Like A Slow River, an atonal orchestration of sussurating and wheezing ebb and flow and rumblings of submarine currents beneath an ice-bedecked surface. Low-end eddies churn at bathyscape depths while the surface is perturbed with the sound of fissures forming and ice turning to meltwater. The music is unrelenting in its dronal creed, but Harris weaves movement into his slabs and wedges of sound, with arcing dives and slow falls inward effectively articulating a slow drift into the abyss. The topography depicted is desolate and bleak, rendered in tones unmoored from any harmonic or rhythmic referents, but Lull's sombre drone diaries are possessed of a kind of blasted heath cruel beauty. Five variations on a theme are rolled out, all forged with deep bass surges and eerie mid-range tonalities, distinction being created through the differing configurations of its sounding sources, varying resonances, modulations and vibrations, and shifts in cadence and timbre. Some tend more toward evacuated space ("Whiteout" and "The Sheet"), while others inhabit more alien zones ("Treeless Grounds" and "Illusion Of Unbroken Surface").

Like A Slow River is, ultimately, not so much an ambient album in the Eno tradition, but rather a softer reined-in extension of the industrial power electronics tradition, its sounds at times liminal, at times subsonic, almost tailor made to the motivating philosophy behind the doom-laden drift of Glacial Movements. Head Glacial Mover, Alessandro Tedeschi, claims a wider remit than the simply musical for GM, aiming to do his bit to help protect the Arctic and Antarctic areas by raising awareness of their gradual effacement through musical mediation, and more power to his environmental elbow. Some might see the conceptual programme as musically limiting but, like the many and subtly different Mozart symphonies or Bach fugues, it could equally be seen as a suggestive overarching theme driving many interpretations. So far, at least, it has given rise to several quite different takes - from Rapoon, Oophoi, and Tedeschi's own Netherworld. And Lull's addition is certainly on a par with these, and this work rivals those of his mentors, Lustmord and Köner, in the power of its dark poesis.

Written by Alan Lockett, Contributing Editor

Mick Harris of Napalm Death is not a person many would associate with the unhurried and hushed sound of dark-ambience where the laws of subtle texturing and atmospheric imaging rule supreme. Since the early nineties however, Lull has been the side-project created as a vehicle for Harris' to exercise his more contemplative musings. After a number of high profile releases on Relapse's experimental sister-label 'Release' and releases for a range of other specialist labels, his latest project 'Like a Slow River' comes courtesy of ice-worshippers and purveyors of quality dark ambience- 'Glacial Movements'.

Instantly settling into the deep permafrost soundscapes that have been a staple of the Glacial Movement's roster, Lull takes us on an engaging journey towards the Arctic, but never gets caught up in the inhospitable atmospherics of its more hostile regions. Instead, his wafting atmospheric drone burbles at near static-pace, shunning the concept of time in favour of charting an elongated course of progression, much like a river that meanders around instead of running the most efficient course possible. After the achingly slow opener 'Whiteout', we are greater with the omnipresent 'The Sheet' which progresses in a more muscular fashion. Sheets of warm and organic static, feedback and warped audio-skree fuse into a devastatingly epic blanket-cloud of sonic-material that constantly threatens the listener with eventual suffocation. The claustrophobic-nature of the piece is broken up due to the injection of subtle ambience through which a sense of light pervades. As the album progresses, it is this sense of light that starts to make itself more apparent, with semi-melodic micro-tones and high-frequency sound waves delicately littering rumbling pockets of low-frequency burble. The sound comes across as natural, almost 'gentile' in-places but with the constant menace of an all-out storm hanging overhead. It is very much akin to the blustery and unoccupied plains of Northern Greenland post deep-Winter where the ice is starting to thaw and the birds are close to landing, i.e. desolate and grim but with nature summoning all its power to bring life back into existence.

With 'Like a Slow River', Lull has perfectly distilled the sound of the sub-arctic in an album whose tracks flow in one great body. The vividly coloured (and excellently executed) photograph adorning the inside cover is in complete contrast to the sounds that accompany it, however, it acts as a wonderful wake-up call to prove to listeners that there is life beyond the claustrophobic clutches of this magnificent slice of dark-ambient drone. (KS)

EXPERIMUSIC

Thanks to a recognisable concept, tireless promotional activities, co-operations with some of the major acts of the genre and a musical language capable of addressing many different scenes, Alessandro Tedeschi's Glacial Movements imprint has turned into one of the main newcomers in the Ambient segment over the past year and a half. The label's first compilation, "Cryosphere", was one of the talked-about items in insider circles at the time, quickly selling out its limited print run and full-length follow-ups have received more than just an appreciative high-five in various Print- and WebZines. Interestingly enough, "Cryosphere", with its reverbed spaces and cool-burning bell sounds, proved to be the outfit's most untypical release to date.

Effectively, this was down to the philosophy and aesthetics Tedeschi had been devising in his mind years before concretising them in a record company. Glacial Movements, probably like no other label anywhere else, is steeped in Isolationist Ambient, a music revelling in sensations of perfect solitude. It is the musical cry of the naked individual, exposed to nothing but the bare forces of nature, stripped of the expextations and the support of society. Almost by default, the genre expresses itself best in hermetically sealed-off zones, whose sonic architecture is left to the devices of a single composer.

The twist of the story and the main reason why Glacial Movements has enjoyed such an ethusiastic reception is their conceptual nod towards the frosty beauty of the Antarctic region. Both in terms of cover- and album-design, its publications have explored different trains of thought with regards to these barren, outstretched lands as well as hypothetical journeys through its white infinity. Ambient, forever a "Picture Music" feeding as much from associations and allusions as from the actual arrangements, attains a spiritual acme in terms of focus and imaginative power here.

Clothing the music in lovingly lay-outed Digipacks, Tedeschi has made use of this underlying oscillation to bring out the best in himself and others. On "Morketid", the solo album he released on Glacial Movements as its second CD, he somewhat distanced himself from anything he had previously scored, engaging in a style which owed as much to William Basinski as it did to Brian Eno. Rapoon's "Time Frost", meanwhile, went down a remarkably similar road, defrosting Richard Strauss' "The Blue Danube" from a centennial slumber. Effectively, these works no longer represent tastefully assembled depressive dirges but an expansive kind of ambient romanticism, taking all the time in the world to let its ardent blood.

On the strength of these records, it no longer comes as a real suprise that Mick Harris, of former Napalm Death- and current Scorn-fame, has chosen Glacial Movements as the home for his first album in four years under the disguise of "Lull". Vice versa, Tedeschi repays the favour by crowning Harris "the most important representative of ambient isolationist music ever" - which may not necessarily be overstating his achievements for the scene, but slightly underrate the eclecticism and diversity of his ouevre, regardless of the bleak and plaintive outlook it holds in general.

"Like a Slow River", after all, has turned out anything but a one-tracked release. In opening piece "Whiteout", Harris delineates the outlines of his territory, allowing his gaze to float over gigantic ice floes and penetrating the core of thick clouds of cold mist. From the initially abstract rumble of howling winds and seismic convulsions, a musical landscape gradually begins to unfold, manifesting itself in deep choral moans and regally shifting drone tectonics. Harris carves out the bass region with special care, creating waves of tummy-punching thrust, which lend his music an immediate physical intensity.

Linearity is pleasantly absent here, as pieces move without a recognisable logic. Th album as a hole, however, adheres to a strict plan: From its undefined and open beginnings, "Like a Slow River" peacemeal develops more recognisable forms, leaning heavily on drones rich in harmonics and inner palpatations. The title track already bases on a gentle pulse of Nordic breaths, billowing and fluctuating, while closing "Illusion of Unbroken Surface" even closes the album with a delicate melodic touch.

Harris maintains a fine and carefully measured balance between stasis and movement, as well as between the frightening and the consoling. As a consequence, "Like a Slow River" has therefore turned out much more than just a dark and ominous chunk of noise. Rather, it weaves a finely woven net of fragile metaphors, resulting in a soundtrack to snowflakes falling from the sky in dream-like slow motion.

By Tobias Fischer TOKAFI

Avec son goût avéré pour les ambiances cryogénisées, les progressions dark-ambient lentes et un certain situationnisme isolationniste, nul doute que Mick Harris était, sous son étiquette Lull, une recrue de choix pour le très recommandable label italien Glacial Movements. Emmené par Alessandro Tedeschi (de Neverthland), Glacial Movements s'est fait le porte-voix abstract/ambient d'un monde polaire en voie de désagrégation, évoquant à travers la beauté cristalline et morphologique de ces productions la force et la fragilité d'un écosystème menacé. Like a Slow River rend particulièrement hommage à cette dernière image paradoxale. Comme un fleuve coulant au milieu de la glace, la musique de Lull s'y révèle avec une présence magnétique et obsédante qui semble inaltérable. Tel un flux antédiluvien, les coulées sonores liquides et prégnantes concoctées par Mick Harris conduisent nos sens à travers des filtres glaciaires, des pics de glace s'étoilant au contact, minéralisant notre écoute dans un sentiment de veille frissonnant. Mais, au cour de la musique, en y prêtant l'oreille, on capte de temps en temps l'ombre sourde de bruits enfouis plus inquiétants, de matières organiques qui fondent, craquellent et se meuvent presque sans qu'on s'en aperçoive. "Illusion of unbroken surface" titre le dernier morceau, le plus court, comme pour précipiter au beau milieu de notre écoute se sentiment de menace diffus, imperceptible presque mais déjà existant.

Laurent Catala - OCTOPUS

After being back on the map with a great Scorn album, Mick Harris has finally unburied the Lull project with a new full length, and I feel it's only natural that it's been released by Alessandro Tedeschi (Netherworld)'s isolationist label Glacial Movements. Now, has anything changed since the heydays of the Lull sound? I'd say no, and it didn't need to AT ALL, as far as I'm concerned. Since the very first seconds of "Whiteout", you notice that the trademark Lull soundscapes are back in full shape: ultra-deep bass frequencies, floating drone tapestries, feels like being pushed underwater without oxygen AND ENJOYING IT. This is more or less in the vein of the "Cold Summer" masterpiece, and though unavoidably less groundbreaking it's still an inspired and evocative album. Welcome back, mr. Harris.

Assistant Editor Difficult but worth the effort, Mick Harris' take on "glacial ambient" is especially literal.Netherworld's Alessandro Tedeschi founded the Glacial Movements label to explore and promote his concept of "glacial and isolationist ambient" music. Since the founding of the label, such noted artists as Rapoon and Oöphoi have used extended droning tones and thick layers of sustain to create the sonic equivalents of arctic vistas and lonely tundra landscapes. With Like a Slow River, Mick Harris (of Napalm Death and Scorn fame) revives his Lull project to take things even further. These tracks are so minimalist that the notes themselves are largely absent, with just their remnants in the form of lingering echoes left to create a sense of frigid loneliness. "Whiteout" opens the album with several minutes of near-silence, a hint of windy blowing gradually emerging as the only discernible sound, and "The Sheet" is less a metaphor for glacier than a direct reproduction, all icy heaviness, rumbling along with enough strength to carve out mountains but so gradual as to be imperceptible to the human eye. Title track "Like a Slow River" at last adds a hint of contrast in the form of whistling tones; presumably meant to evoke the wind blowing through cracks in the ice, it's tempting to compare them to whale songs, if only to conjure some sense of mammalian life to mitigate the loneliness. "Treeless Grounds" returns to subtle droning, softer than ever, tones bent under the weight of an arctic sky, and "Illusion of Unbroken Surface" finishes things off with higher-pitched windiness, thicker this time, almost harmonic, and the closest the album gets to conventional music. The genius of this album is that Harris provides little assistance to the listener; this isn't an album that will instantly transport you to the arctic north with no effort on your part. With properly focused attention, however, Like a Slow River is an extraordinarily subtle and rewarding listen.

Nie ważne, że niegdysiejszego pierwszego blastowego czempiona wśród perkusistów bardziej dziś interesuje bas w znaczeniu zwierzęcym niż muzycznym*, nieistotne jest też to, że ostatnie albumy spod szyldu Scorn serwują tylko smutny, snujący się gdzieś przy ścianie bombastycznego parkietu cień dawnych dokonań w stylu "Collossus" czy "Evanescence". Wszystkie winy zostały Mickowi Harrisowi - gdyż o nim mowa - zapomniane, kiedy światło dzienne (a raczej: mroki nocy) ujrzał powrotny - wydany po dziesięciu latach! - album trochę już zapomnianego, ale zdaniem co poniektórych (w tym mej skromnej osoby) najwybitniejszego projektu tego nad wyraz płodnego artysty.
Wydany w młodym, lecz prężnie się rozwijającym włoskim labelu Glacial Movements krążek miał przed sobą nie lada zadanie - udźwignięcia ciężaru pokładanych w nim nadziei (trochę zresztą podkopanych po rozczarowująco słabym, wydanym parę miesięcy wcześniej w tej samej stajni krążku innej ambientowej legendy - "Time Frost" Rapoona) fanów takich monolitów jak "Moments" czy "Cold Summer". Bo czy da się po tylu latach wrócić z podniesioną głową? A jednak - pierwszy ambientowiec wśród perkusistów pokazał, że można. Wrócił nie na tarczy, lecz z tarczą, i to jaką.
Dron, bas, obłędna atmosfera i nieustannie napięte do granic wytrzymałości nerwy. Jak zwykle trzeba uważać nie tylko na własną głowę, ale i na membrany sprzętu grającego. "Whiteout" jest niczym skondensowana szkoła izolacjonistycznego mroku dla wszystkich spragnionych podręcznika w stylu "jak to się robi, żeby urywało łeb i zamykało gęby", a "Sheet" to dźwiękowa tapeta dla filmu dokumentalnego o spiętrzaniu się masywów górskich na przestrzeni milionów lat. Szczególnie ujmujący jest jednak "Treeless Grounds", gdyż (wybaczcie tę słabość) przypomina jak żywo nagranie z muzykoteki pewnego innego genialnego, tym razem niemieckiego, izolacjonisty...Muzyka dla szaleńców, anty-muzyka, w-ogóle-nie-muzyka, "godzina pomruków i nic więcej".
Czy też po prostu - płyta roku.
W tym miejscu pozostaje tylko zacytować nieśmiertelną parę naczelnych polskich demaskatorów kultury za pomocą śmiechu - Waciaka i Mendyka: "Można? Można."
* - "bass" (ang.) - "bas", ale również "okoń" (Harris znany jest ze swojego zamiłowania do wędkowania)

Het is een flinke poos stil geweest rond Mick Harris (Scorn, ex-Napalm Death, Painkiller), maar de komst van een nieuw, uitstekend Scorn album (�Stealth�) vorig jaar kondigde met luide trom zijn terugkeer aan. Daarnaast wordt hij tegenwoordig regelmatig gesignaliseerd in de buurt van Black Engine, een nieuw project van het Italiaanse avant-jazztrio Zu en Eraldo Bernocchi (zie GC#86). Met "Like A Slow River" wordt nu ook Harris� oude ambientproject LULL, waarvan de origines teruggaan tot 1992, van onder het stof gehaald. Of beter: van onder het ijs. Het op arctische sfeer ge�nte themalabel Glacial Movements van de Italiaan Alessandro Tedeschi (Netherworld) blijkt namelijk de perfecte habitat voor Harris� donkere ambient. Halverwege de jaren 1990 kreeg het geluid van LULL, dat van begin tot eind verder borduurt op het pionierswerk van Lustmord en Thomas K�ner (Porter Ricks, Kontakt Der Junglinge), nog de etiketten �isolationist ambient� of "illbient" toegekend. (In dat verband refereren we graag naar de ondertussen veertien jaar oude dubbelcd �Ambient 4: Isolationism�) Vandaag spreken we over drones en soundscapes en dekken die vlaggen de lading even goed. "Like A Slow River" is de perfecte titel voor wat LULL presenteert: vijf diepe, minimalistische en tergend traag voorbijglijdende drones die een desolate, ijskoude en mensonvriendelijke omgeving evoceren. Te catalogeren naast K�ners "Permafrost" en "Colder Summer" van LULL.

Italian label Glacial Movements' tagline is 'glacial and isolationist ambient' and the new album from ex-Napalm Death, Painkiller and Scorn mastermind Mick Harris embraces this concept. Resurrecting his long-absent Lull project, Harris revisits his dark, minimal ambient alter ego to deliver an album for a label that focuses on those very themes. The fittingly titled "Like A Slow River" is an hour long journey spread across five generally lengthy tracks of glacial ambience. Often barely more than low droning textures and fluid tones, every nuance is subtly portrayed. Conjuring images of vast windswept polar landscapes, "Like A Slow River" slowly but accurately paints a picture of a featureless tundra, depicting the gradual movement of an ice flow and the feeling of absolute isolation the environment represents. Completely unrushed and slowly evolving, Harris allows the music to tell its own story through gentle rumbling drones and subtle drifting tones. As the title suggests, there is a feeling of natural progression throughout the album, as though nature takes its course at its own steady but insistent pace. Harris' music is calming and gentle but at the same time has a tense air of the inevitable whilst creating an impression of epic scale in a magnitude only possible in nature itself. Often quite tense and at others sublimely calming but consistently dark and minimal, "Like A Slow River" is quality submersive listening music with hidden depths that marks the welcome return of one of Harris' most acclaimed projects.
(PL:8)PL.

Lull è l'universo isolazionista di Mike Harris, nato batterista e distintosi prima nei Napalm Death, poi negli Scorn da lui fondati e nei Painkiller di John Zorn, giusto per citare le formazioni più famose che lo hanno visto protagonista. Tutte band da prendere con le molle, macchine ideate per produrre suoni ostici, e tutte risalenti agli anni Novanta del secolo scorso. Anche la sigla Lull compare nei primi anni 90, esattamente nel 1992 con l'album d'esordio Dreamt About Dreaming. Questa più recente fatica per l'etichetta di Alessandro Tedeschi, in arte Netherworld (vedi Quaderni D'Altri Tempi n. XI), rompe un silenzio di qualche anno, anche se parlare di silenzio interrotto è qui eccessivo. Infatti, anche questo Like A Slow River è un flusso di basse frequenze, di possenti vibrazioni sotteranee, che accarezzano il silenzio, lunghi drones elettronici che soffiano nell'interminabile notte polare, idoneo commento a una nuova variazione sul tema del glaciale, tanto caro all'etichetta di Tedeschi. Un lavoro da annoverare tra le cose più egregie realizzate dal musicista britannico. L'insieme è composto da quattro lunghe tracce tra i 12 e i 14 minuti e una quinta, molto più breve, quasi una coda spiritata. Difficile e più che altro inutile entrare nel merito della singola track, essendo questo un ambito dove conta l'intera sequenza sonora, un lento emergere di cupi rimbombi, sprofondamenti nell'immobilità, ciclico avvicendarsi di timbri oscuri e inquietanti. Masse sonore abissali che collassano ripetutamente e sembrano mimare il lento incedere dei ghiacciai eterni. Insomma un disgelo dell'artista votato al gelo assoluto.
Gennaro Fucile

Il y a eu cet album d’Andrei Samsonov, Void in (sur Mute Parallel Series), qui exprimait littéralement le cours d’une rivière sous la glace. Elle diffusait sa propre lumière, loin de la surface qui était un autre état de sa matière. Mick Harris lui, en tant que Lull, a préféré depuis le début les courants abyssaux et la progression dans une totale obscurité. A peine y croise-t-on quelques créatures phosphorescentes. Autrement, c’est symphonie de la haute pression, et vrombissement d’une mélancolie de fond des mers – rumbling, rumbling, rumbling. Puis, parenthèse de plusieurs années, Mick Harris se consacrant pour l’essentiel à Scorn – Lull se réactive le temps d’un travail plus électroacoustique que nous avons publié en 2001. Aujourd’hui, les premières façons sont remises en œuvre. Mais on a récemment lu que Like a slow river ne marquait que trop peu de différences avec ses disques des années 1990 (Journey through underworlds, Dreamt about dreaming, Continue, etc.). C’est faux, la façon ne signifie pas la forme, mais le geste. On ne peut reprocher à l’artisan d’avoir dompté son tour. Si les premiers disques louvoyaient dans les abysses, Like a slow river est véritablement le chant d’une eau douce et encore doucement engourdie par la banquise qui la couvre. C’est un disque d’après une débâcle tranquille, d’une fonte patiente qui éclaircit le vrombissement et crée, par étrange phénomène de remontée, de beaux courants d’air glacés. Ce drone magnifique, débarrassé du sel et chargé de lumière, ne chante pas encore son courant, mais il réverbère le bleu de la glace qui le couvre, caressée de soleil. Ces chants sont comme de douces vibrations de métal transformé en souffle bienveillant. On pense comme souvent à Thomas Köner, dont les premiers travaux furent publiés simultanément à ceux de Lull. Ici, pas d’éclosion, mais une même rumeur de neige, un vague de lumière poudrée. Cymbale frottée peut-être, n’oublions jamais que Mick Harris est avant tout un batteur d’exception et que ses gestes peuvent revenir en de singulières résurgences. Fil de lumière donc et, au-dessous, le plancher océanique qui rugit à l’unisson puis élève de vastes tremblements, portant plus près de l’affleurement les vagues argentées. Ce sont elles qui confirment encore la débâcle, se chargent de couleurs, du bleu à l’orange pâle, montrent la voie de la rivière, dont on saisit avec émerveillement le lent réveil.

Už jsem se bál, že projekt Lull zmizí ze zemského povrchu. Mick Harris, byvší člen Napalm Death a pilný elektronický operátor pod hlavičkou dark elektronického projektu Scorn, překvapil a po sedmi letech přichystal další zachmuřený, hlukově ambientní výlet. Jeho deska Like A Slow River pokračuje v klasické náladě Lull minulé dekády. Tím je myšlen hutný a valivý sound ve své minimalistické, totálně izolované podobě.

Pět skladeb alba se pomalu plazí k posluchači stejně jako ledovcový kar pokrývající v minulosti svou mrazivou skořápkou polovinu Evropy. Zatímco Netherworld i Rapoon ve své hudbě zahrnuly krom mrazivé přírody i lidský element, Harris se bez něj, jak je u něj ovšem typické, hravě obejde. Nepředvídatelné hlukové postupy, ticho a pomalý hlukový splaz na pět způsobů – tak bychom mohli v jedné větě charakterizovat novinku, znovu jemně připomínající staré kusy Thomase Könera. Klasika znovu trochu jinak.

FREEMUSIC.CZ

By now Mick Harris has achieved a kind of apotheosis, occupying a hallowed place in the Dark Drone Annals, alongside, if with a slightly lower stature, the likes of Lustmord and Thomas Köner. These last-mentioned were the founders of the isolationist creed that arose from a ferment of industrial-ambient and dark-drone activity which Harris did much to carry forward in the mid-90s. Harris had a flair for the desolate and voidoid fuelled by a harsh audio-sensibility forged in the fire of Napalm Death. What had been less clear till then was a certain prowess in sound grabbing and scaping that drew the listener into the abyss without drowning them, most notably on 1994's isolationist classic, Cold Summer. Like A Slow River, not surprisingly, finds Lull still documenting similar psychogeography, as atonal murmur and reverberant wheeze consort with currents beneath the surface. For all its relentless dronanism and slab-like sonority, Lull’s minimal movements are fully felt in slow falls inward into abyssal depths. Lull charts a tonal topography bleakly remote from harmonic referents across five variations on a theme of sickly sub-bass slithers and queasy mid-range slivers, configuring sounding sources into varying modulations and vibrations, shifting cadence and timbre. Like A Slow River will fall, out of categorical imperative, into that black hole facilely labelled "dark ambient" into which much disappears from view, pulled down into lumpen-homogeneity by association. The Lull aesthetic might more accurately be seen, though, as a radical redraft of 80s/90s industrial power electronics with noise reduction on, allowing expression to subtler textural resonances of signal. However designated, Lull’s variation on a pessimist-humanist enviro-futureshock theme joins those from Rapoon, Oophoi, and GM curator himself, Netherworld, as an entirely congruent addition.

What makes ambient isolationist? In the early 1990s it was a reaction against the highly rhythmical, ornate, more-techno-than-ambient music that, oxymoronically, was often used for dancing. Stripped to the most minimal, artists like Thomas Köner created very quiet, slow moving music that seemed like the sound of absence. Polar regions seemed an apt metaphor, a featureless, flat, wind-swept landscape. And unlike the deserts, bleak landscapes that have inspired other musicians, polar regions are uninhabited, removing the vestiges of aboriginal civilizations that haunt Steve Roach and his desert ambient colleagues. In 1994, Virgin Records released a 2-CD compilation entitled Isolationism that tremendously expanded the acceptable range of music covered by the term. In particular, it opened the door to paranoia and despair, looking at isolation as a social term, and moving toward other environments, inner as well as outer, where an individual could be isolated. But one label which has retained the far, cold north as inspiration, ironically from Mediterranean Italy, is Glacial Movements, self described as "glacial and isolationist ambient." Their first album was a compilation, Cryosphere, released in July 2006, and their schedule has proceeded as slowly as the ice portrayed on their covers and alluded to in the label's very name. In May 2008, the label's fourth release was Mick Harris' first full-length album as Lull in nearly a decade, Like a Slow River. Harris should need no introduction to long-time ambience enthusiasts from his work in the early 1990s with Bill Laswell, and perhaps from his various ambient metal (speaking of oxymorons) projects such as Napalm Death and Painkiller. But Like a Slow River is very much in keeping with Glacial Movements' stated aesthetic — long, slow textures, an absence of melody or rhythm, few points of reference. This is especially true of the opening track, Whiteout, where everything blurs into various shades of white noise, marked with high-pitched gusts of wind. But each track is distinct, from The Sheet's deep bass rumbles that come in surges, eventually permitting glimpses of soft melodic fills, to the gentle oscillating drones of Treeless Grounds, which has fewer landmarks than Whiteout, if that's possible. Lull's isolation is peaceful, meditative, a turning inward for our most private thoughts, faint glimmerings, and the remainder of the previous night's dreams.

CLASSICAL DRONE

From the punishing speed of Napalm Death through the narcotic dubstep of Scorn and into the isolationism of Lull, all of the projects from Mick Harris are connected by an utterly bleak outlook on the world and the human condition. This album was released in 2008, marking it the first proper Lull album in something like 8 years (outside of a one-off collaboration and two collections of rarities); and Like A Slow River stands as one of the better releases in his entire discography and it's certainly the best Lull album to date. The five pieces unfold into grey masses of mist, fog, and shadow without much in the way of delineation of shape or form. There are heavy rumbles of distorted basstones as if thunderous explosions were being set off many miles away, and there are slight filigrees of melody coaxed out of the purposefully amorphous drone passages. Ambient music has long favored a reductionist approach, and Harris (like Thomas Koner, BJ Nilsen, and at times Lustmord) instills his dramatic absences with an existential dourness that is signature of the isolationist aesthetic. It's very very cold, very very slow, and very very well done.

AQUARIUS RECORDS