Alex Zethson - Pole Of Inaccessibility [Thanatosis Produktion 001]

Going back to 2016 with this album, the first full on solo effort by Swedish pianist and composer Alex Zethson - probably best known to readers of these pages as a member of the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, a group whose work has been reviewed on these pages previously. With "Pole Of Inaccessibility" released via his own label Thanatosis Produktion Alex Zethson caters a two track double CD album and therefore a monolithic debut of which the first part, "Pole Of Inaccessibility I", is stretched over the course of roughly 41 minutes and caters, leaving aside all the heady conceptualism referred to in the promotional press sheet, a haunting, unsettling variation of Dark Ambient built on a foundation of thundering, reverberating pianos, slighty muffled and bereft of their high frequencies, yet moving forward in a bleak, nightly and somewhat empty and desolate manner and therefore evoking an interesting state of mind within the conscious listener, slowing down every single thought and finally dissolving any single idea about what time actually is. This approach towards total mental stasis is also employed in the first minutes the second piece, the 58 minutes spanning "Pole Of Inaccessibility II" which pairs a slightly more dramatic, melancholia-infused background and tender drone works before slowly progressing into beautiful, mostly minor scale piano minimalisms, harking back to both (Neo)Classical and romantic Minimal Music as well as to barely audible near silence only to make a return to the endless, reverberating meanderings  introduced in the albums first part and to finally fade out into Ambient nothingness over the course of 10+minutes. Intense music for long, undisturbed late night listening sessions.