Explore Ancient Northern Mysteries in Cold World of Eternity by Ugasanie

With a glacial howl, a rising frozen swell of ambient texture, Ugasanie stands rises from the horizon, azure fascia gleaming in the sunlight to extend a new album of droning, glacial sound design and texture to the Cryo Chamber label. Time has no meaning to this composer, whose previous release was the enigmatic, Lovecraftian collaboration with Dronny Darko, Dark Source of the North (2022), and Ugasanie returns with a new, ice-hewn Cosmic Horror droning un travail exemplaire, Cold World Eternity. This is a chilling foray into the frigid, unforgiving North, and the ancient mysteries and stark realities that become unfurled and discovered through exploration. The oblique narrative is just as open-ended and vague as the music contained within, with only the faintest touches of crystalline at the edges of periphery to elucidate the listener engaging in this journey to the far wastelands.

“In the far north, whispers of a bygone civilization linger in the crisp air. Intriguing clues fuel speculation: ancient maps marked with cities that seem to have vanished, and weathered remnants of massive stone structures scattered across the frozen landscape.” Thus is the opening narrative to the album, and just as the words convey an inexorable rising promontory, so the music does the same, as a swelling texture of sound begins to emanate forth, rising into the center of the mind’s eye, with subtle new layers merging with the first, only to slowly drift past at a glacial pace, giving way to the chilling winds and minute fx mingled with field recordings. As described in the precis, this is an album of slow, deliberate exploration - and a facet that this particular enjoys thoroughly - a story told through song titles. Just as the vague narrative suggests with its descriptors, song titles such as The Frozen Forest, Ancient Ruins, and Megalith pique the imagination ever so slightly, just enough so that the imagination begins to paint icy landscapes in the mind, tinged with the flourishes of mysterious narrative, all while the slow drone of the pads carry the listener slowly along their timeless path. 

Musically, this is a languorous album; everything happening in their own time, at their own pace, and Ugasanie never deviates from this formula. Ever present is a swelling momentum of some colossus of ice, and when not at the forefront, gentle glacial winds caress the mind, as if to signal the lull between the crossings of yet another massive iceberg, or perhaps the slow, tortuous journey across an icy landscape to yet another timeless mystery left in the snow by some ancient civilization.

Cold World Eternity is a perfect soundtrack for the movie of the mind, never at the forefront of the attention, rather, preferring to stay in the back of the mind, issuing the gentle, delicate moods of mystery and chilling soundscapes and allowing the listener’s imagination to conjure their own tales of discovery. It is yet another brilliant example of Ugasanie’s grasp at cosmic horror storytelling as well as sound design, and you can purchase Cold World Eternity in CD digipak and digital format on the Cryo Chamber bandcamp page.