This is the first in the ‘Iceberg’ series from Glacial Movements, who are inviting artists to provide aural descriptions of icebergs in the form of an album. Now that may sound like an impossible task, but Glacial Movements artists have always carried striking descriptive powers, and so it is with label owner Alessandro Tedeschi, recording as Netherworld, whose ‘Zastrugi’ album takes place over just five tracks. There is an underlying menace to this music, with restless beats that are not danceable but mean that the mood never really settles. This is especially the case on the last track, ‘Uikka’, describing ‘an evil spirit of Inuit mythology’ with heavy, hammering percussion. ‘Dry Andes’ is much more relaxing, with a lovely, slow alternation between two chords. These are the two extremes of an album that is strangely captivating, rather like the beings it describes.
