It was a cold Burlington, Vermont winter in 2002. I used to have to walk across campus every frigid morning, and the air was so cold that before my nose even had an opportunity to begin running, it was frozen shut. I liked to listen to Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and 1 Mile North because there was something perfect about freezing to death under white/grey skies with haunting, beautiful sounds passing through my ears.
Glass Wars (released in 2001 on Old Colony Records), is one of the most beautiful ambient — or you can call it “post-rock” if you desire — recordings made during the bountiful early ’00s. The guitars are crystalline, the static-rich field recordings are sublime, and the distant keyboards rising and falling are the aural equivalent of the sun passing between clouds to provide a momentary feeling of warmth. Trying to focus on every plucked string, each shifting keyboard melody, and the Conet Project-like recorded samples got me from dorm to class building to downtown eatery, open mic, grocery store and back. There were no blizzards that year, but there was a perpetual layer of dirt and snow on the ground that lasted from October until April. The frustration in having to trudge across campus or down the hill to Church Street would have been unbearable were it not for albums like Glass Wars. They were the perfect soundtrack to that year of my life — way better than the other soundtrack of that year, which was my ex-girlfriend crying on what seemed like an infinite loop.
1 Mile North’s second record, Minor Shadows, is even better. I’m pretty sure they’re both out of print, but I could be wrong, and if I am, I’m sorry to the members of 1 Mile North. To be honest, I don’t even know if they released another album after the second one. They really should have, or should someday soon. In my humble opinion, this album can sound just as good as or better than Labradford’s Mi Media Naranja, which I’ve always thought of as one of the best ambient albums ever recorded.
1 Mile North
Glass Wars
MediaFire Download Link
Tracklist:
01. New Clock
02. Have A Good One What
03. Parents Arrive
04. Evil Architecture
05. Insides
06. Escorting Deep Waters
07. Man Rounds Corner
