"Scott Solter, one half of Boxharp and prolific recording engineer,  producer, mixer, re-mixer and musician, reissues his 2005 album ‘One  River’. It has aspects of what is con temporarily described as glacial  ambient, in that it is built from monolithic drone scapes that move  slowly and invoke qualities of sparse almost barren climes. As a piece  it comprises guitar processed to bare recognition, tape, cymbals, field  recordings and manipulated voice, although it’s production qualities are  so heavily present that the main instrument would have to be considered  as the recording studio. Solter’s press material would have it that he  is exploring the space between Brian Eno’s ‘Music for Airports’ and  William Basinski’s ‘Disintegration Loops’, although comparisons to some  of the output from Glacial Movements would be equally a descriptive  shortcut.

‘One River’ is a seven track album which presents itself as one long  unfolding with the nominal indexing for motives not quite clear. However  they can be considered as movements with a whole with ‘Tarn’ opening  the affair as a slow build introducing the elements and developing the  recurring motifs into longer cycles. The release to the aspects of lower  bass tones to accompany the higher cyclical drones occurs late in  ‘Tarn’ and is a focal aspect of ‘Ghost Trains’ along with subtle field  recordings of trains and a few guitar flourishes. ‘<a href="http://www.hiddenshoal.com/wp-content/uploads/index.php?main_page=product_info&amp;cPath=53&amp;products_id=177" target="_blank">The Great Cold</a>‘  has an eerier  feel with a haunting choral sound and the drones emptied  of their melodic tones to almost suggest affect less expression or  barren scapes, as the intermittent samples of bird cries sparsely  populate the track. ‘Antique Brothers’ slows down the pace and gives  nuance to the drones creating distinct tonal variations within the  cycles and eliciting a melancholic feel eventually being stripped back  to a low tone and stretched minimal renditions of the cycles. ‘Wave and  Sepia Wire’ moves back towards a brighter aspects of the cycles which  continues through ‘Cypress Road’ building a more solemn sound bespeaking  portent which culminates in ‘The Palace Wedding’ and it’s long pristine  versions of the drone cycles with upwardly moving effects and gleams  shining through in a positive resolve.

‘One River’ has also been made into a video ‘<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb99cXnx1-k&amp;feature=related" target="_blank">Twins and Wives</a>: a film for One River’ which is to see limited edition DVD release."

<a href="http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/blog/2011/12/scott-solter-one-river-hidden-shoal/"><strong>Cyclic Defrost</strong></a>