Michael Palace likens the sound of his nearly hour-long drone work, Curuá Una, to “the slow loss and decay of the research station to the forest.” Palace, who records under the name Horchata, is referring to the almost reverential solitude of the piece, which was recently released on the Dark Winter netlabel (MP3). The track is a slowly swelling mass that suggests emotional burden as much as it does decay. It’s a heavy, leaden sound, rich with foundation-rattling depth and enlivened by occasional ringing tones, buried but not lost in the immersive audio. Palace reports that while some of the source material was recorded deep in the Amazon, that material has been subsequently subsumed by a healthy does of reverb, and is augmented further thanks to a host of synthesizers.
More details at darkwinter.com.