Before a note of music enters your ear, the design of this CD really catches the eye. The stunning photography of aAron [sic] Munson, which presents ice as a blue and white irresistible force engulfing both sea and man-made interior spaces, sets the tone for a set of songs that evokes both grandeur and desolation in equal measure.

Trumpeter-composer Wooley has proved his ability to create important concept albums several times in the past and this new work, centred on the ‘burlap hero’ and ‘the imperfection of being’ is no different. The fact that he calls the project Columbia Icefield, rather than foregrounding his own name, reinforces that.

True to the these well-chosen words, the music has an elemental, almost ‘dawn of time’ character, with the bulk of the material drifting painstakingly into being, often over evocative howl-like effects created by Wooley's careful use of amplifiers. It is grippingly eerie, as if the ensemble, bolstered by the presence of guitarists Mary Halvorson and Susan Alcorn, the latter using pedal steel, is crafting huge blocks of sound out of which emerge spindly melodies and vapour-like timbres.

Wooley's doleful lyricism comes into its own in the latter stage of the album, where his unhurried themes enhance the sense of solitude and mortality of a nomad venturing on to a snowy landscape bound for extinction. Austere and shadowy, but as beautiful as the natural world unfiltered.