Glaciers

When I originally listened to Glaciers, I was struck by 2 things. The first is that my streaming service again breaks a Bongripper release down into several smaller sections, here separating the single 22 minute composition into 3 parts named ‘Evil’, ‘And’, and ‘Darkness’. That really highlighted the distinction between track titles and release title for me, since what connection could glaciers have to evil? Turns out that Bongripper imagine them as one and the same thing, so that the music harbours both icy and malignant implications with its slow drones and billowing synths. The other impression that struck me was that not much happens here, but that everything remains extremely atmospheric. Indeed, it makes me wonder whether all 4 members of Bongripper needed to be around for recording, since there’s a total lack of rhythms and I’m not even sure that the guitars were needed except to produce feedback. Upon checking, this was in fact recorded in 2009, so it’s possible that the Americans had sat on it for a while, similarly unsure what to make of such an experiment.

To clarify about the music, much of the time we seem to be in some liminal space - such as, of course, within a glacier - where noises ring out in long, searching peals. Distorted, for sure; unnatural, perhaps. The slowness of everything highlights a natural component but also creates feelings of unease about potential malignancy of the sounds. Sort of like some alien movies where another life form is discovered and at first appears utterly dormant, I’m at once intrigued and creeped out, wondering whether Bongripper will burst into action and cause me to jump out of my seat. Rather heavier crashes of ambient noise appear a couple of times (coinciding with the track positions I can see), though no such commencement of destruction begins. As such, Glaciers could be thought of as soothing ambient or deadly atmosphere depending on your view of its peculiar lush mood.