Thomas Köner - Nuuk (1997)

Thomas Köner's Nuuk is, in many ways, a crystalline example of ambient music. The album provides ample room for sound to be experienced as mood, thereby allowing the listener to translate his/her emotional reaction into words, with very little interference. As often the case, the process of filling empty spaces with descriptions of the music's strengths seems to run counter to Nuuk's primary objective: To reach beyond the artifice of the conceptual, and to touch more directly upon an individual's core of aural perception.

Tomas Köner is a formidable manipulator of sound and image. Geological shifts, with their unceasing yet patient modulations, form the crux of Köner’s musical analogies; the full weight and implication of time and its corresponding transmutations are felt deeply as the album extends through its cycles, each piece gaining glacial momentum as sound carves grand canyons in gray matter. Nuuk is superficially similar to albums by other electronic manipulators of sound, most notably The Caretaker and Deathprod; each of these artists are familiar with crafting portentous and unsettling soundscapes. Köner’s creations, however, opt for awe and natural majesty as their core, as opposed to the malign funhouse visions and icy caresses of the aforementioned artists. Casey Rae-Hunter

1. Nuuk (air)
2. Polynya I
3. Nuuk (day)
4. Amras
5. Nuuk (night)
6. Polynya II
7. Nuuk (end)

Created by Thomas Köner in May-Nov 1995.
#3 recorded live in Apollohuis Eindhoven 1995.
Part of the Driftworks box-set. Released by Big Cat in 1997.

Performers:
Roland Kentrup & Roland Spekle - Gongs
Thomas Köner - Live Electronics

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