Alexander Glück appearing as Aware with Requiem for a Dying Animal (GM051), on the Italian label Glacial Movements Records. I think his second for the label, after the 2017 album The Book Of Wind, which also featured a dog in the snow on the cover. Here the imagery is taken from various library sources, for instance the Swedish Antarctica expedition of 1901-1904, and also a Robert Peary photograph. These old images, and the sad music, do much to invoke our sympathy for the animal kingdom, as did the cover of Algida Bellezza by Netherworld in 2019.
Aware’s approach to the cold-snow ambient genre so particular to this label is to add “foreign bodies” to the pleasing synthesised ambient tones, by which I mean a surface sound effect reminiscent of dragging the sledge through the inhospitable terrain. This suggests in quite a vivid fashion the impossible obstacles that face the intrepid explorer of these climes, to say nothing of the sufferings of the devoted canine workers. In its understated way, a deeply “romantic” and poignant record. (21/07/2023)