Swiftly following Denovali's reissue of
Multicast Dynamics' debut album
Scape and the simultaneous release of his second album,
Aquatic System, Samuel van Dijk's third album under the moniker,
Scandinavia, continues the project's sonic and thematic evolution.
Scape was a stark, barren work filled with eerie crackles and distant rumbling; the brilliant
Aquatic System was far more expressive, introducing billowing, bubbling textures and resonating bass pulses, resembling a deeply submerged variation of van Dijk's dub-techno alias Mohlao.
Scandinavia, the third album in a four-part series, crawls up from the depths of the ocean onto the surface of the arctic tundra, embracing sub-zero temperatures and facing the endless, frozen northern landscape. The album drifts, but it doesn't quite have the fluid sensation of
Aquatic System; the lightly rippling textures and trippy delay are a bit more grounded. The album's most watery-sounding track, "Muodossa," is given an icy electro makeover by VC-118A (another one of van Dijk's pseudonyms) at the end of the album. As with the previous two albums, van Dijk creatively blends field recordings with spacious, flowing electronics, occasionally punctuated by pulsating rhythms, and the results are fascinating and hypnotic. ~ Paul Simpson