Massimo Pupillo

There’s a lot of work behind the scenes in Headphone Commute headquarters. All the email reading, promo sorting, and, of course, the listening and writing take up lots of time to make sure that I can bring you honest music on a regular basis. Sometimes, my “job” is mitigated through the trusted filter of a record label. After all, they invest more than just time into their supported artists. There are many such examples where I can turn to a favourite imprint and pretty much enjoy every single release. For many years now, since 2006 to be exact, I have been following the output of an Italian label founded by Alessandro Tedeschi, which he called Glacial Movements. As the name implies, the music put out by the imprint specializes in glacial and isolationist ambient soundscapes, “places that man has forgotten… icy landscapes… fields of flowers covered eternally with ice…” It’s a beautiful place, and I have been a fan of the albums, including that of Tedeschi’s own Netherworld project. Today, we’re stepping away from these desolate territories of the inevitable future and instead take a look back at the ancestry of the past. In particular, the new album by Massimo Pupillo turns our attention towards the Indigenous people of the Arctic, who have been inhabiting some of these [in]hospitable lands since the dawn of human civilization. The track I am premiering for you today, “Horagalles”, is titled after the thunder god, often depicted with a sledgehammer in one hand and a cross-hammer in the other on the Sami shaman drums. It’s a beautiful and slightly eerie piece, full of enigmatic worship, belief in the unknown, and, of course, the distant rolls of thunder.