Netherworld is a solo project of Alessandro Tedeschi, who is also the owner of the label. He has been producing ambient music for over 15 years, but recently, the artist started to release material in a more active manner. According to the press release, this upcoming mutual collaboration with bvdub is also a testament to their over a decade-long friendship.
We were discussing and guessing that probably Alessandro created the label, as a way to escape from the summer heat they have in the city of Rome, where the record company is located. According to our travel experience it’s hard to resist the heat in Italy at this time of the year. So probably he's dreaming about Arctic landscapes with northern lights and beautiful icebergs. On the other hand, he would like to urge and express the ecological impact of humanity on the planet Earth. It’s not a surprise that they released some albums that we really like in their catalog and we feel an importance of promoting this sort of sound.
Brock’s dreamy melodic multi-layered ambient music doesn’t need a long introduction. It is quite enough to just mention a well-received The Art of Dying Alone which was also released on GM label. Besides the release we indicated, we also have some other ones that we really like.
The album gives a wide range of moods and cinematic impressions like the imaginary miles-long frozen landscape where we can hear some distant female voices. Ambient listeners might like such a minimalistic and static approach colored with some slightly distorted sounds. Changes and progression, a balanced equilibrium of a glacier is the point at which its mass of snow and ice compresses. Neither advancing nor receiving the frozen elements and forever in balance. Experienced listeners can feel a well-balanced mix and instantly recognize “the gritty warmth of bvdub above, the glacial cold of Netherworld below, locked in a line that forever remains the perfect point at which they both exist as one” That was the other reason to call the release Equilibrium.
When two solo artists are collaborating there is a big risk that the final result will be too crowded and each artist will dominate all the frequencies. But in this case, the album seems legit and each element forms a cohesive equilibrium.
Author: Jan Kruml, Ilya Kudrin