goes in one ear, and freezes in the other
by .thejass.
Summer's Wet Work Is Done goes in one ear, and freezes in the other. Viul (pronounced vell) is the project of Michigan-born, DC-based Luke Entelis whose previous two songs on Moodgadget's ambient music compilation, Expanse at Low Levels, set up the anticipation for this hypothermic debut EP. Opening song "Baltic Sea" lowers your hearing's temperature with a shivering sound, and begins a three stage process for freezing audio to death. As the hypothermia saying goes, "You aren't dead until you're warm and dead." The third track "Coma Kid" creates an artificial warmth sensation that tricks your system into thinking you've recovered from the cold, but the reality is that you are now heading into stage two.
The arctic condition of this album provides an indefinite, if not near infinite, longevity to the frostbitten experience in Benoit Pioulard's Dulcimer version of "Strands to Stream through Yet." Being too tired to shiver anymore, stage three's closing track "Wound Cotton Wound" will lull you towards sleep, and the moonlit glow rising over the spiky ridge on the album's frozen cover entices you to let go. Alex Koplin designed the album's artwork based on Dylan Entelis' (Viul's brother) bravura photograph taken in Iceland. Image and sound are solidified in Summer's Wet Work is Done so much that this seven track EP could be considered an example of musical cryopreservation—storing your ears in a audio state that only future Viul releases' could resuscitate.
