Genre: Ambient

Note; also released on the Israeli label Auris Media, catalogue Aum010

01 White I
02 White II
03 White III
04 White IV
05 White V
06 White VI
07 White VII

Less propulsive than some of his previous releases, on White, Igor Krutogolov has succeeded in creating an ambient record with a Celtic flare, a capturing of playground voices and the spaces in between their childish nonsensical taunts. Structured to be a slowly building symphony, acquiring instrumental depth as the record progresses, the music begins with a churning, the static of early morning rain, or dripping faucets. A carousel theme cascades throughout the background, ducking under a sharp flute that enters arrthymically, providing verve and a tightening against the otherwise pacifying ambient drift. All is quiet, a schoolyard, new day, waiting to happen. Halfway through the record, voices gather, flitting in and out, the children at recess, perhaps.

The flute’s tweaking becomes more wooden and the insistent rainy sounds of the background track turn into a pouring. Well-sequenced, the album builds with the intensity of a day idly spent gazing at clouds. By the final track, bells have rung, calling an end to the school day, or just the day, and the flute segues to a bowed bass that draws an elongated close, introducing dusk. Each track remains nameless, simply a subset of the title, a symbolic passing of a non-eventful afternoon, perhaps, life even. Even the booklet accompanying the CD keeps with this theme of negative space: the cover is adorned with the artwork of the album cover, an embossed tree whose leaves are in the process of leaving it for winter (one can picture the collective whose voices are heard, briefly, on the record gathered in a schoolyard beneath the tree, shivering), but the interior of the booklet contains only blank pages, each the same as the other. This repetition is echoed in the music, and the only thing one wishes for, occasionally, during the course of the whispery static symphony is a bit more variation