''Permafrost'' is the third solo album from German
ambient
Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to:
Music and sound
* Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds
* Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere
* ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby
* ...
music producer,
Thomas Köner
Thomas Köner (born 1965 in Bochum, West Germany) is a multimedia artist whose main interest lies in combining visual and auditory experiences. The BBC, in a review of Köner's work in 1997, calls him a "media artist," one who works between instal ...
. Considered by many as his greatest work, he further develops the icy drone style of previous works, making its climax in the title track. In 1996, the album was re-issued by
Mille Plateaux
''A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' (french: link=no, Mille plateaux) is a 1980 book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It is the second and final volume of their collaborativ ...
along with his previous album,
Teimo, on one disc.
Track listing
#"Nival" – 5:57
#"Serac" – 5:38
#"Firn" – 5:34
#"Permafrost" – 10:09
#"Meta Incognita" - 7:03
#"…" - 3:24
Notes
''Nival'' is a synonym for ''snowy''.
A ''
serac
A serac (from Swiss French ''sérac'') is a block or column of glacial ice, often formed by intersecting crevasses on a glacier. Commonly house-sized or larger, they are dangerous to mountaineers, since they may topple with little warning. Even ...
'' is a group or column of ice intersecting
crevasses
A crevasse is a deep crack, that forms in a glacier or ice sheet that can be a few inches across to over 40 feet. Crevasses form as a result of the movement and resulting stress associated with the shear stress generated when two semi-rigid pie ...
on a glacier.
''
Firn
__NOTOC__
Firn (; from Swiss German "last year's", cognate with ''before'') is partially compacted névé, a type of snow that has been left over from past seasons and has been recrystallized into a substance denser than névé. It is ice that ...
'' is a type of snow that has been left over from past seasons and has been recrystallized into a substance denser than
névé
Névé is a young, granular type of snow which has been partially melted, refrozen and compacted, yet precedes the form of ice. This type of snow is associated with glacier formation through the process of ''nivation''. Névé that survives a ...
. It is at an intermediate stage between snow and glacial ice.
''
Permafrost
Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface ...
'' is soil at or below the freezing point of water (0 °C or 32 °F) for two or more years. In practice it is a large stretch of land (found mostly in
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
) with soil frozen all over deep to the bottom.
''"Meta incognita"'' means "unknown frontier" in Latin. It's also another name for
Baffin Island
Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is , slightly larger than Spain; its population was 13,039 as of the 2021 Canadia ...
.
External links
Discogs entryType Records reissue
{{Authority control
1993 albums
Thomas Köner albums
Albums produced by Thomas Köner