SLEEP RESEARCH FACILITY - 'Deep Frieze'



CSR72CD (April 2007)
CD in jewelcase with foldout map booklet (SOLD OUT)
Barcode: 823566023722



Ultra deep, glacial Dark Ambient, based around Antarctic co-ordinates. The polar regions are awe-inspiring environments of inhospitable minimalism, and at the same time there's a beautiful serenity to be found in their uncharted bleakness. There's a powerful purity and a timelessness to be found there; snow which has lain un-trampled for millennia and ice which formed eons ago; mountain ranges and deserts and rivers to be found if you look. 'Deep Frieze' is SRF's second album for Cold Spring and here deep, resonant, abyss-like drones shine forth from icy chasms below as whiteout blasts across the vast and largely uncharted expanse of emptiness above. Chilled, though not necessarily chilling. There is a certain comforting warmth in the encroaching slumber of hypothermia..

Jewelcase with foldout map booklet. Temporarily sold out. Due to be reissued 2021.

Track Listing:

1. 79ºS 83ºW (13:34)
2. 72ºS 49ºE (11:48)
3. 82ºS 62ºE (11:12)
4. 86ºS 115ºW (10:51)
5. 80ºS 96ºE (11:04)



Reviews

Vital Weekly
Heathen Harvest
White_Line
Free Association Nonsense
Musique Machine
Sonic Immersion
AmbientBlog
Alternativmusik
Medienkonverter
Darkroom
Obliveon
Invisible Oranges
Chain DLK
Necroweb
Terrorverlag
Mentenebre

Reviews:

"The five tracks of Deep Frieze add up to an immersive experience with a 58-minute duration, and the infinite planes of textured drifts and drones shift at an appropriately glacial pace. Here and there, trace elements of melody are discernible, but the overall effect is one of unfathomably immense events taking place entirely without human involvement, interest or intervention, movements as slow and ineluctable as the shifting of icebergs. SleepResearch_Facility's take on dark ambient is similar to that of Visions or Mandelbrot – inclined towards cosmic scale and human insignificance, but not really “dark” or actually malevolent. Desolate and isolated, for sure, but not actively out to get you. The sound is extroverted, impelling the listener‚s attention outwards into enormous white expanses, and yet paradoxically it‚s also deeply introspective. A very meditative experience, really, and a release which can only enhance Cold Spring Records‚ reputation as a purveyor of really top quality ambient and industrial music. The foldout booklet of Deep Frieze offers the cheery thought that "there is a certain comforting warmth in the encroaching slumber of hypothermia" (Judas Kiss)

"Deep Frieze itself draws on the frozen inhospitable wastelands of the Antarctic for its inspiration.  With Deep Frieze Doherty concentrates on low bassy drones and icy swathes of drifting sound. Everything about this album, from the title’s play on words to the map co-ordinate track titles and the foldout map included in the artwork adds to the feeling of a vast unforgiving polar terrain. With that comes a feeling of isolation and a huge featureless yet beautiful landscape, one which Doherty depicts wonderfully through his music. Similarities may be justly drawn with the work of artists like Biosphere (particularly Cirque or Substrata) who is a master of icy polar ambience and the subtleties of the sounds and imagery it brings with it. Doherty’s work may be slightly less intense but still has all the presence, feeling and sonic imagery this beautiful  yet dangerous terrain depicts. Although split into five distinct tracks, Deep Frieze is essentially an hours exploration of a beautiful yet hostile environment, the music skilfully reflecting this notion whilst exhibiting the absorbing hypnotic quality of an excellent ambient (dark or otherwise) album". (Judas Kiss)

"Kevin’s music is dark glacial ambient music inspired (at least this album) by the cold Antarctic region. The music is mostly slow paced ambient music with swirling drones of synth and manipulated noise and environmental recordings... if you close your eyes and began to drift into sleep while listening to this recording you can really picture the freezing coldness of Antarctica tundra. Think about it; snow blowing in the wind, ice everywhere, frozen water. Point is this is some really stunning dark cold ambient music...  the albums booklet folds out to form a map of Antarctica, which is certainly a novel idea if I ever saw one. Fans of dark icy cold ambient music should definitely give Kevin and his facility a chance." (Lunar Hypnosis)

"This is the ambient music that ambient music puts on the stereo when it wants to unwind and get reacquainted with its roots.... [a] sweeping, textbook example of true soundscaping craftsmanship. Sleep Research Facility allows each piece to evolve at its own pace. SRF effortlessly conjures up the sound and feel of icy wastes across which the winds roam unimpeded. He progresses by smearing great swaths of thick greys and off-whites on this canvas as he raises monoliths of unimaginably large exterior space, the kind of space only nature can provide... imagine the most tremendous hall housing the most monstrous giant turbines you could ever conceive. It´s inspiring to hear someone with such an ear for nothingness." (Sonomu) 

"If I were to say the word ‘desolate’ you would automatically assume I meant to convey the word’s negative meanings… cold, bleak, barren and empty, devoid of anything positive…. but in the context of this CD, whilst cold, bleak, barren and empty certainly do apply and in buckets to boot, the desolation described in the soundscapes is utterly and entrancingly beautiful, just like the icescape that inspired it, Antarctica. There is a fragility here that is at once restful and threatening, reflecting the vast inhospitable snowblind wildernesses of the southern polar icesheets, swirling washes of naturalistic sounds with an undercurrent of unsettling rumblings. This took me back to my first reading of “At the Mountains of Madness” by HP Lovecraft, its depiction of cold and frozen alien vistas so accurate, a known part of our world and yet so strange and unfamiliar, a beauty that inspires and repels in equal measure... A tour-de-force of bleak isolationism that sweeps over the listener that either envelops one with wonder or terror at the vast cyclopean spaces" (The League Of Independent Satanists)

"We can all relate to the mysteries surrounding the Antarctic. The massive ice, the silence, the harsh natural balance; the absence of a cultivated environment. A great inspirational subject for isolasionist music. And that is what Sleep Research Facility created. Massive drones and ambient layers with just enough minimalistic changes in the soundspectrum to be intriguing for a routined listener to the genre as well as newbies." (Gothtronic)

"L’eterno mare bianco. La solitudine e la serena paura del nulla. Agghiacciante, e non solo riferendosi al clima. Quello del freddo e del suo regno, l’Antartico, è un tema perfetto per la mastodontica, tranquilla, stoica e ipnotizzante onda sonora di SRF. So che qualcuno potrà dire che questa ambient “metereologica” è uguale a se stessa che l’evoluzione dal precedente ‘Nostromo’ è nulla, come essere passati dal nero più profondo al bianco più accecante nel battere di palpebre del risveglio. Eppure potrei ascoltare quest’opera per un giorno intero (praticamente l’ho fatto) e perdermi ancora e ancora dentro di essa, in un vortice sonico che non ammette variazioni ma solo resa, un circolo (polare) di umori minimali e accennati, che prima regalano pace con la loro gelida inquietudine, poi inquietano, quando, arrivati al termine di questo glaciale passeggiata sul pack, vi troverete soli e prossimi all’ipotermia. Se ascoltate un solo disco di ambient (stavo per scrivere “dark ambient”, ma qui è proprio la luce ad accennare e rendere visibili le ombre più temibili) fate in modo che sia questo. E portatevi una coperta." (Ritual Magazine)

"L’ambient music giunge con questo CD ai suoi livelli più puri e netti concentrandosi unicamente sulla ricostruzione di una realtà concreta sfruttando le macchine, e riuscendo in pieno a rendere quelle sensazioni che potremmo provare solo dinnanzi ad un documentario sull’Antartatide (rigorosamente senza commento) o in un gelido sogno. Non è solo la musica a condurci in quelle zone dell’emisfero australe, troverete anche un bell’inserto che riproduce la mappatura antartica, oltre a titoli basati su coordinate geografiche e un dominante color grigio chiaro memore dei ghiacci perenni. Sebbene un lavoro del genere risulti di difficile approccio, non posso negare che SleepResearch_Facility coglie nel segno e struttura ciò che molti vorrebbero realizzare, ossia un album che riesce a creare un’atmosfera compatta, lineare, plastica della durata di quasi un’ora, senza la benché minima sbavatura.... Fondamentale per gli amanti dell’ipotermia." (Twilight Zone)

"Anche in questo nuovo “Deep Frieze” le coordinate rimangono quelle di una impenetrabile deep dark ambient e, a cambiare, e piuttosto lo scenario immaginifico che ha a guidato la composizione delle tracce. Sono infatti i ghiacci delle inospitali regioni polari – e non più lo spazio siderale – a fare da sfondo alle nuove composizioni di Doherty, ciascuna identificata da coordinate appartenenti ai territori antartici. L’elegante dark ambient contenuta nei cinque lunghi pezzi sfida l’ascoltatore ad una fruizione che risulta sicuramente impegnativa e forse non adatta agli amanti delle contaminazioni. Isolasionist music nella sua pura forma, strutturata su drone monolitici che mutano lentamente e che vengono accompagnati da pochi altri layer, utilizzati per segnare questi rari cambiamenti all’interno dei brani. “Deep Frieze” centra sicuramente l’obiettivo di riuscire a ricreare le suggestive ambientazioni del paesaggio artico, ma e utile precisare che la proposta si indirizza esclusivamente ad un pubblico esperto e conoscitore del genere." (Flash Magazine)