A Closer Listen
There’s great irony in the fact that modern winter music oft-includes the sounds of a vanishing season. The United Nations declared 2025 The Year of Glacier Preservation, and in response, the forms of minutiae imprint launched the year-long Ice Series, focusing on endangered physical and sonic environments. We could have filled half of this year’s spots with these releases but felt it would not be fair to all the other artists; this being said, we’ve chosen one and we recommend them all.
This year’s selections cover a wide swath of winter music, from crackling drift ice to a score for a new French film. Scattered between are celebrations of snow and intimations of spring. The soundtrack to the winter season begins below!
Chandra Shukla ~ Hima हिम (Ceremony of Seasons)
We were always going to love a winter album packaged with a bottle of wine and a container of incense: a package meant to help one endure the coldest, harshest nights. The album is filled with spiritual drone, the electric sitar suggesting both past winters and past lives; and somehow, we’ve survived them all.
Original Review
Cicada ~ Glazing the Shades of White (flau)
Returning to this list after 2023’s Seeking the Sources of Streams, Cicada travels even further into the heart of winter, tracing the paths of glaciers from continent to continent. Some have melted, while others still glisten. The music offers a requiem, but is also a tribute to time and land.
Original Review
DNGLS ~ La route des Alpes (Lifeguards / IFT)
A new score to André Bayard’s 1921 silent film, La route des Alpes allows one to make the Alpine journey from the safety of one’s own home, or to don AirPods and to imagine that one is reaching the summit of an imposing mountain, sparkling with new-fallen snow. The temperatures may be frigid, but these beats are invitingly warm.
Original Review
Ensemble 0 ~ L’Incroyable Femme Des Neige (LAAPS)
The score to a playful French film about a chaotic visit to one’s relatives, L’Incoyable Femme Des Neige (The Incredible Snow Woman) offers intimacy and depth to balance the onscreen antics. One might even call it melancholy, but we suspect that the ending of the film, like that of the score, is upbeat, honoring the heroine’s comic book title.
Original Review
Evgeny Grinko ~ Winter Moonlight (Nettwerk)
The most “classic” winter album on our list, Winter Moonlight reflects the composer’s lifelong fascination with the season and the celestial body. The piano notes fall gently as flurries, while subtle accompaniment surrounds the notes like lightly accumulating drifts.
Original Review
Joshua Bonnetta ~ The Pines (Shelter Press)
The Pines is a four-disc set, culling 8760 hours of recordings down to a single hour per season. On the Winter disc, one hears the sounds of migrating flocks, ice and snow and an encroaching silence and stillness, punctured by snowmobilers, whose presence is authentic but disruptive. Just like the tree that houses the microphone, we’re grateful to return to the sounds of nature.
Original Review
Meriheini Luoto ~ Talon uneen vaipuen (Falling Into Winter’s Sleep) (Self-Released)
Calling on the talents of four Finnish ensembles, the composer constructs a suite that stretches from winter to spring. One can hear the snow and sleet as they fall, and later as they melt. And in-between, Luoto makes space to celebrate the heart of the joyous season, as forest creatures come out to frolic and nature dances in a blanket of white.
Original Review
Patrik Berg Almskvisth ~ Life Above (Nettwerk)
What if one doesn’t ascend the peak, but remains at base camp, after trekking through the local area, spending time with villagers, witnessing a funeral, and watching the sun rise over Everest? Might this also serve as a peak? Almskvisth believes that it does, and convinces us of the same.
Original Review
Valotihkuu ~ Drifting Between Seasons (Nettwerk)
The latest of Valotihkuu’s sublime nature-centered releases, Drifting Between Seasons honors the fact that sometimes winter feels like autumn and other times like spring. Only in mid-winter is the cold connection immutable; and even that is changing. The album carries listeners all the way to the spring melt, with peace woven into every track.
Original Review
Yoichi Kamimura ~ ryūhyō (forms of minutiae)
Five albums were released as part of forms of minutiae’s spectacular Ice Series this year, honoring the UN’s Year of Glacial Preservation. ryūhyō, which captures the sound of (modern) drift ice, is the coldest and most wintry. One day these endangered sounds may be extinct, which makes the LP an historic artifact.
Original Review
Richard Allen
Tue Dec 02 00:01:20 GMT 2025