Sylvgheist Maëlström hasn’t taken much of his time to produce the follow-up to his HANDS debut “Skaftafell”. On “Pripyat” he deals with transformation and extinction of nature, thus he discards the majestic minimalism of the predecessor and adopts a very different musical language, with chunky IDM rhythms and dense soundscapes to portrait the numerous disturbances man inflicts upon nature – and the way nature reacts to that, reinventing itself. A heavyweight, unsettling electronica album that is topped off with crackling remixes by [basementgrrr] and Yura Yura. Pripyat is the “nuclear city” where the Chernobyl power plant is located. Abandoned after the infamous 1986 disaster, it stands a rude reminder of man’s ruinous effect on nature – and the inimitable way nature achieves a weird comeback after the seemingly worst blow. Such forbidding thoughts are the main preoccupation Sylvgheist Maëlström used as an inspiration for this album, and it shows soundwise: Heavy rhythms throughout, sinister melodies, throbbi