in brief

High to Fly, Ice-Cold to Crash

Jacob Kirkegaard: »Snowblind«

Sune Anderberg. © Alexander Banck-Petersen

On his new album, Snowblind, Jacob Kirkegaard shifts his focus away from revealing the hidden sounds of our surroundings to instead depict a psychological drama. The inspiration: The Swedish polar explorer Salomon August Andrée, who in 1897 set course for the North Pole in a hot air balloon – a reckless journey that cost him and two others their lives, blinded by snow and the pursuit of fame.

Through 11 icy tableaus, Kirkegaard paints a portrait of the anxiety and doubt Andrée must have felt when the balloon crashed onto the pack ice east of Svalbard. For two months, the three men continued on foot until they reached the desolate island of Kvitøya – where they died a few weeks later, possibly poisoned by undercooked polar bear meat. By then, nature had long since revealed its hostility.

You hear all this on Snowblind. First, the balloon takes off in an air current that elegantly balances on the edge of suffocating dark synths and a heartbeat rhythm, while a metallic screech – reminiscent of a heroic electric guitar – subtly signals doubt: Was Andrée a hero or a villain? Shortly after, we land in a vast nothingness of scraped metal. The shockwave transforms into mischievous, squelchy synth footsteps as desperation and hallucinations grow: Was that a ship's horn I heard? A lifeline?

But no. Silence wins. The icy water rattles like a hungry beast. The hardboiled psychological drama leaves no room for hope, only a chance to stare at your end right in the face. Had Kirkegaard been a truly ruthless portraitist, we might have descended even further into darkness and disorientation, but his weightless ambience still leaves its marks in the snow.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

playlist

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Bill Frisell. © Carole D'Inverno

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