The long-awaited new release from Russian ambient artist Alexander Ananyev,  Bordeaux is set against an icy landscape with desolate atmospheres.   There are though, more dimensions to Ananyev's work rather than just providing backdrop music for snow-driven walks.  The deception is in minimal presentation - the more attuned and concentrated Beautumn than in recordings past.   Beautumn has always been his ambient vehicle, though there were dabblings in IDM that existed in each of the previous full-lengths - White Coffee and Northing. 

There is little dabbling here.  Beautumn is more focused, but perhaps more interesting as there is so much subtlety being interjected.  The mournful violin (courtesy of Maria Romanova) of the title track enhances as a well placed string theme can, without dominating.  "Telegram" opens the album and sets the tone of a slowly rotating canon, picking up and resting each of it's components in a ghostly void.  The echoed clicking, the sounds of radio, the captured air of a water tower - these familiarities and fingerprints of a well-composed Beautumn track are here and sprinkled over these haunting synth arias.   There is something inherently Russian about

Bordeaux, about this sound.  Tragic, cold, mysterious and beautiful - it is a product of the land whether it is meant to be or not. 

The design by Pyhai befits this recording perfectly.  The visual of a wind and snow swept landscape dotted with isolated structures and lonely winter treks.  It is housed in a 6 panel Stoughton printed mini-lp gatefold sleeve.  Available on CD and digital download.  The CD is limited to 400 copies.