Rekalix: Frozen Planet
White Label Music

On Frozen Planet, Rekalix (aka Southampton, UK-based electronica producer Andrew Lintern) creates meditative, synthetically symphonic music that conjures images of barren tundra and glacial expanses long-abandoned by life-forms. It's an Isolationist wonderland of tranquil soundscaping that should attract devotees of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Eno. Lintern, a Kuurort Records associate whose debut album Zykancialuu was issued by the label, sequences Frozen Planet so that much of it flows together, resulting in an hypnotic, 46-minute journey filled with gauzy tones that glimmer like fading photos that seem ever-so-slightly out of focus.

In the title piece, male voices swoop amidst whistling winds that echo through still valleys, while tones gracefully arc like birds in slow motion during “Mystic Winds.” “Xelilika” brings Rekalix's sound closer to Eno (in ambient mode), an impression bolstered by the presence of guitar-like tones that recall Robert Fripp's current cathedralesque style. The album springs to more conventional rhythmic life during “Scrapes from the Surface” when minimal percussive patterns pop as a backdrop for ecstatic tones to cast their gaze heavenward. The ten-minute “Windmills in the Sea” closes the recording with swirls of gossamer synth tones that eventually vanish into the aether. Its ‘frozen' surface and grandeur notwithstanding, Rekalix's tranquil music exudes an inviting character that renders it more warm than cold. Classify it as music designed for the empyrean.

October 2007