Opal X’s Environments is a deep droning meditation on the polar vortex and computer generated environments. Recorded on the Prophet 8 synthesiser in weeks where temperatures dropped to -8° in subzero South London, Opal X conjures a hallucinatory snowstorm where material and augmented realities coalesce. Environments is mastered by the ice cold Amir Shoat.

Following previous releases for The Tapeworm and Industrial Coast — and building on the topographical rust of the Nonexistent project — Environments journeys deep into the turbulent flow of the polar jetstream. Drawing influence from the work of C.C. Hennix, Maggi Payne, Thomas Köner, Opal X erects a flagless pole at the ends of the Earth. Emerging frost bitten from the arctic night, hypothermic tones are swallowed by the reverberations of the wounded arctic abyss.

Opener ‘Hunger Moon’ establishes the scene, diving into dark waters before surfacing onto the glistening ice sheet of ‘Permafrost’. ‘Icebreaker’ hunts for a Northwest Passage, with hydrophonic sounds stretched into transmuting filter sweeps. The primordial rhythms of snowfall are pierced by a refraction of the arctic sun’s blinding rays in ‘Fluorescence’, before the warped dub of ‘Augmented’ melds into the long night of ‘Atmospheres’, which delivers coils of sub frequency from below. Environments’ ident closes the tape, with the title track signalling the cracking of the ice sheet as the ship slowly turns, the odyssey’s return leg beckons and the day job resumes in eight hours…