“A Distant Destination” by Strategy

My favorite Strategy releases, such as 2004’s Drumsolo’s Delight and 2007’s Future Rock, offer up a highly atmospheric take on minimal, dub-influenced electronic music that’s remained endlessly engrossing over the years. The latest Strategy release, however, is all about atmosphere. As such, it’s arguably one of the most purely ambient albums in Paul Dickow’s catalog.

Inspired by the limitations of a sampling keyboard from the late ’80s, A Cooler World finds Dickow composing chilled soundscapes by hand sans any sequencers, drum machines, or similar paraphernalia. “A Distant Destination” is one of the album’s highlights, and finds Dickow layering shivering drifts of icy ambience atop subterranean bass pulses. Meanwhile, glassy notes tumble and reverberate along the song’s surface, evoking the lights of the aurora borealis dancing across polar ice structures. It’s as minimal as anything Dickow has recorded, though no less captivating.

Back in 2015, I described Strategy’s music thusly: “In its best moments, [it’s] music that I can lose myself in, not because it encourages me to turn off my brain or simply bliss out but rather, because it’s bubbling electronics and ‘sterile’ soundscapes hint at depths and expanses to explore.” That’s no less true for “A Distant Destination,” and by extension, the rest of A Cooler World.

A Cooler World is currently available from Constellation Tatsu.