Various Artists – Winter-Light … That First Season

	3.5
Release data: Various Artists – Winter-Light … That First Season CD/DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, Winter-Light, 2017

What I got here is an ambient compilation released by Dutch Winter-Light containing 16 exclusive, unreleased tracks by skilled composers hailing from all corners of the globe.
The 140-minute double album “Winter-Light…That First Season” (mastered by the notable Simon Heath) actually offers ambient aficionados the opportunity to discover many new talents in the presence of familiar names (that is if you’re willing to descend into stark, adventurous, intense, dark and immersive textural landscapes).

Split in two chapters the outcome presents itself as a journey into the vast unknown featuring various abstract, gloomy, spooky and alienating hooks in the morphing sound current of each piece. On the first disc (Heavy Snow – cold polar drifts), the atmospheric, captivating and more consistent aural art of Seetyca, Phantom Ship, Foetusdreams and Velgenaturlig pleased me the most.

After this demanding ride it’s time for Long Shadows (dark light shining brightly), the second disc of the release. Kicked off by Jeff Stonehouse’s “These Promises” and Havdis mesmerizing “Borea”, the listener starts submerging into introspective, dreamy and harmonic spaces of morphing ambient drift. Thereafter, Apocryphos, Strom Noir and Spanish artist Kloob (who introduces some hypnotizing sequencing along his velvet soundscapes) continue gracing your ears with their soft wavering and spiraling sound tapestries of the beckoning deep end. Shimmering currents dark drones and a light sequence surface on Michael Brückner & Mathias Grassow’s evocative 15-minute reverie “The Fall of Leafs”. At the end, Japanese Hakobune’s “Shimoyo” rounds out the recording with a short piece of his typical layered guitar soundscapes.
According my taste, this second disc makes the strongest, emotive and most in-depth part of the release for sure and the incentive purchasing it.

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