Horn, Maria W - Melting Pillars of Snow

Melting Pillars of Snow is a collection of compositions from the renowned Swedish composer, written for Contrabass Recorder, Shō, Percussion, Electric Guitar, Voice and Electronics performed by Horn together with a chamber ensemble consisting of Anna Petrini, Mattias Hållsten, Magdalena Meitzner and Mats Erlandsson. The album also features narration by Horn as well as a guest appearance by Michael Gira on the first single Scythe of Saturn.

Melting Pillars of Snow sees Maria drawing inspiration from W.G. Sebald’s novel The Rings of Saturn which is a poetic reflection following an unnamed narrator wandering along the Suffolk coast in England. As the landscape gradually shifts the text touches in various ways on the passage of time and the distance between past, present, and future, reflecting both vast temporal scales, such as the cycles of the seasons, deep historical time and microscopic moments and fragments.

With the compositions contained in this release Maria evokes a similar sense of stillness - an environment in which the movement of time itself can be illuminated and observed.

The ensemble is completed by Mats Erlandsson performing on electric and acoustic guitars moving from gentle arpeggiated figures to doom-laden drones and feedback howls.