A Closer Listen
There are two distinct ways to experience the world of Gabríel Ólafs‘ Polar. One may enjoy the album as an instrumental suite, or as a narrated journey. Each offers its own unique pleasures.
While the title gives the impression that the album is about the earth’s polar regions, the location is open to interpretation. The world of Polar may be the Earth following a climate catastrophe, or another planet entirely. Polar: Traveler’s Log, on the other hand, is clearly about space exploration, unless the reveal is akin to the final scene of Planet of the Apes. Either way, this world is frigid, forlorn, a frozen mirror of the primordial sea. Here it is not the Spirit but the whales which move across the face of the deep.
The music is spacious, connoting grandeur. The recording space offered ample reverberation and room for reflection on wide angle themes. “Whale Overture” yields the first memorable motifs, the strings surging across unoccupied seas as pods cry and sing and respond. Each sonic pass is like a singular body crossing in front of the invisible camera. Already there is a sense of largesse, and a sobering question: is this world more beautiful because it is without us? “The Waves” conveys a sense of exploration, and matches beautifully with the narrative of Traveler’s Log, but one needs no words to intuit the resolve.
The presence of a track titled “The Monolith” begs comparison to 2001, in which the monoliths, built and delivered by an unseen extraterrestrial species, are present at various phases of human evolution. In the world of Polar, one might describe humanity as in either a pre- or post-civilized phase; or more soberingly, substitute the whales for humans, implying that a different species is favored. The harp notes soothe while the lower strings disturb, resulting in a grand melancholy.
“The True Meaning of Forever” and “Coda” were released as a two-sided single prior to the album issue; their elegiac nature was somewhat lost on the singles, but they are right at home at the end of the set, drawing down the curtains on a species, an era, perhaps an entire planet. One is left to wonder at hubris, and what might have been.
Polar: Traveler’s Log might be more accurately described as words to a traveler, a second person narrative written by Rebecca Roanhorse (Between Earth and Sky) and delivered by Hera Hilmar (Mortal Engines, See). For the most part they are interspersed with the instrumental pieces, save for the opening and closing segments, where they overlap. While listening to Traveler’s Log, one becomes immersed in the story, and concerned for both narrator and subject.
Having grown to know Hera Hildur as an actress, one gains a new appreciation for her voice: “The planet rises in the ship’s view screen, a boundless world of whites and waterlogged blues.” The narrator may be speaking to a single inhabitant of the planet below, or to the species as a whole, before “death intercedes.” Seeking to encourage and dismay in equal measure, the narrator speaks of beauty and holiness, a divine but cruel hand that may have molded the world. Would that you could go back; would that there were a second chance. Finally, the narrator’s identity is revealed, and the sci-fi story becomes a love story. The listener is left with a deep sadness, deeper than that of Polar, for here there is no wiggle room; the horrible has already happened. The voiceless singing of “Final Log,” not heard on Polar, is the epitaph before a final, merciful blessing.
Many books but few albums offer the chance to “choose one’s own journey.” This creative pairing of complementary releases deepens our appreciation of Ólafs, who reaches for the stars and invites us to sit in the passenger’s seat as he travels to a world eerily similar to our own. (Richard Allen)
Available here
Wed Feb 26 00:01:41 GMT 2025