Pitchfork

I generally try to leave cover art out of the discussion when it comes to reviewing albums, but every once in a while you just have to do it because it makes sense. In this case, what you see when you look at the packaging for the album is exactly what you get when you listen to it: a limited tonal palette, lots of wide-open space, and a decidedly minimalist approach. It's probably kind of difficult to tell in tiny 72 dpi, but the lines stretching across the bottom of the brown field are steel-wound guitar strings, whose vibrations are the source of all but two sounds on this CD. It's also worth noting that the package itself is the signature slipcase of Australia's Room40 Records, a promising ambient-focused upstart with a highly distinctive visual calling card.

Frost consists solely of guitarist/soundscaper Ben Frost, and his approach to the instrument is more textural than harmonic or melodic. He draws long sounds from the instrument, processing and layering to create a slowly swelling and morphing mass of shimmering icicle tones that hang in the air like wraiths of smoke. It sounds especially great in the dark, as the waves of guitar echo around the room.

The first two compositions are both soft-edged swells, clouds of drones that rise and fall separately to build dozens of subtly different textures. Stars of the Lid and Keith Fullerton Whitman have more or less perfected this approach, and Frost does a good job of it, crafting an enveloping haze. The standout track, though, is "You, Me and the End of Everything", a languid ice flow built around a few sparsely plucked, heavily reverb-drenched guitar figures. Vocalist Jane Wentzki provides color, often merging with the guitar as Frost chops her voice and distorts it, laying it between inky chords and long, wailing drones. It's ten minutes of pure phase aural bliss, a total bath for the senses.

The title track wounds as if it was recorded in an old stone castle, the way the sounds reverberate, but of course it's all artificial reverb. Field recordings of crackling sounds and muffled voices lie deep in the frigid lake of feedback and string noise, but it seems clear that they're not really the focus of the piece, but rather a sort of measure taken to lend the listener a sense of place. The album closes with two pieces that, despite failing to expand much on previous tracks, are nonetheless entirely agreeable.

Steel Wound is an exemplary ambient experience, and another fine release from an intriguing young label. The chilly textures Frost creates are easy to immerse yourself in, and even occasionally transcendent. Whether he can spin this approach into another album this interesting or moves on to something else only time will tell, but Steel Wound speaks well for itself in the meantime.