Sleep Research Facility - Deep Frieze [Cold Spring - 2007]This is Sleep Research Facility aka Kevin Doherty second deep ambient album for Cold Spring and his fourth in all. The albums concept is based around the uncharted and people-less polar landscapes, caverns and mountains, which really managers to suck you deep into its deeply chilling sonic world. Each track is entitled after a polar co-ordinate with each nicely drifting and sound hazing into each other, giving a nice flowing hour of sonic chills and deep atmospheric beauty. The sound picture is always swirled and embraced by shifting polar winds, deeply haunted reverb and deep cracking of vast ice landscapes, Doherty making the sound seemly expanding and deepen away from you like staring off over a vast white frozen desert at the falling midnight sun, or down into bottomless ice canons. He weaves into the deep droning polar winds and white-out expanse rich melodic touches, which drift like lone white feathers over the sonic deepness, carving some dark but often quite beautiful momments. At times this brings to mind a slowed and darker hazed version of some of Biosphere exploits into chilled ambience, but Doherty managers to put his own spin and personality on the material and like the best ambient it feels untouched by human hands- feeling elementary based. An accomplished and heady sonic treat primed to get oneself well and truly lost within its freezing, yet oddly soothing darkly beautiful audio depths. Roger Batty
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