#nordgeist

Little wonder, then, that a woman identified only as T has responded to life in Bratsk with Frostwinter, a debut LP of chilling power. Long compositions dominate the record; the shortest of its four tracks clocks in at nearly twelve minutes. The songs conjure long, sub-Arctic nights, serious winds off the Angara, shards of frozen minerals razoring through the air. T’s sense of texture is one of Nordgeist’s most emphatic strengths. She builds thick soundscapes out of black metal’s conventional resources: blasts, shrieking voices, a hint of moaning synths and a crush of tremolo-picked guitars. Kvlty materials, to be sure, and a fairly kvlty production, which sounds rougher and more ragged than refined. But T mobilizes those familiar tonal qualities of black metal, and with them constructs a compelling and idiosyncratic sonic environment. It’s a sound, and it’s a space. 

The second half of Frostwinter (comprising two tracks, “Revenge” and “Sorrow”) is especially dense. The songs progress through specific movements and moods, most of which could be called atmospheric—but with little of the melodic pleasure frequently associated with atmospheric black metal. T’s layering of riffs and fricative guitar tones creates a relentless, proliferative vibe. The songs expand and envelope you. The final four minutes of “Revenge” and the entirety of “Sorrow” constitute a continuous build, up a blizzard-struck peak of rock, into freezing, frightening whiteout. It’s sublime. 

That sense of continuous build doesn’t discount the effects of the ambient interstitial sections, which fill the seconds between songs with sounds of withering wind and the crunch of footfalls through a crust of ice. On other records, those gestures might feel artificial, field recordings that ultimately separate the studio-bound music from the field itself. Frostwinter uses them as binding materials that join song to song, and music to space. Ending the record with a track titled “Sorrow” might seem to guide that binding process to a pretty dismal place. It’s music made in Bratsk, full of smoldering cinders and ash, bone-shattering cold. The unrelenting sound of “Sorrow” closes in around you, replicating the grip of an inhospitable lifeworld, of rapacious industry and pitiless nature. Somehow “Sorrow” ends up creating a magisterial affect, a spirit that electrifies even as it enervates. It’s really good music. One hopes that T withstand the demands of life in Bratsk long enough to give the world more songs of this strong a caliber.