Jamie Drouin & Lance Olsen, Snowfield + Remix (2 CD Infrequency)

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Let´s get right to it, without expouding at length on the aesthetic parameters within which Snowfield was conceived and executed. Disc One contains field recordings of what I assume are fingers, boots and contact microphones playing around in a patch of British Columbian snow. Seven tracks of crunching, skritching and scratching snow crystals stretching over more than an hour. While I can imagine that it was entertaining in brief snatches in the UK white cube for which it was intended back in 2003, as a home listening companion it quite honestly becomes quickly repetitive and annoying

The initial limited run CDR release of the above disc has now been superceded by this handsome edition now including a full CD extra of reworkings - two by Jamie Drouin, and one each by Lance Olsen, Yann Novak and, a bit of a joker in the deck, Tomas Jirku (though he too is a Vancouverite).

While I have no doubt that Drouin and Novak used original source material as the basis for their soundscapes, you´d be hard pressed to identify where exactly. Instead it seems more a matter of having been inspired by the vision of an untouched, flat plain of snow rather than its actual aural qualities. All three of these "remixes" are each a very accomplished exercise in evoking stillness. Olsen´s and Jirku´s contributions each remain much more faithful to the source, but it is the work of Novak and Drouin I keep returning to for sheer musicality.

http://www.infrequency.org