(Self Release)

Heaven knows how long one would like to remain alone in front of the sea at sunset, contemplating the rippling magnificence of the water kissed by those oblique rays, the eyes full of that hypnotic shimmering. It’s probably one of life’s most intense sensations. 58° North uses this kind of imagery for about 24 minutes of dazzling immobile sheen, wonderfully captured by the camera of Iain Stewart, who created a splendid complement to those rare moments where silent consciousness finally finds the courage to knock at our brain’s door to introduce itself. Also comprised in this heart-shattering film are heavily clouded skies, grey encounters between horizon and sense of doubt, peculiar natural openings with shot-from-below water droplets gleaming like tiny shooting stars. Everything is underlined by a masterful soundtrack by Keith Berry, whose sources are slowed down by the quicksand of eternity, which swallows every refraction and assimilates it in a dark chamber of unconfessed emotions. Berry works with static, almost immutable tapestries that change – again, s-l-o-w-l-y – according to the games of shadows and lights conceived by Stewart. One seems to perceive marine sounds, wind and seagulls at one point, and they’re probably looped somewhere in there. But it all resounds damn near to those wordless songs of sorrowful loneliness that childhood taught us by the dozen. They’re still the best music that I’ve ever heard.