Camp Of Wolves - Planetar (2023)

“I set out with the intention of giving this a sort of symphonic drone sound,” says David Salisbury about his Camp Of Wolves album ‘Planetar’.
“I wanted to cinematically document a long, lonely and harrowing journey through the cosmos with an uncertain – but probably not happy – outcome.”

Stylistically, the eight ambient pieces collected here are imbued with a classical texture, doused in heavy, endless reverb to give the listener that sensation of hurtling through the darkness of space. These pieces switch between the dreamy – almost like you are gazing down on Earth while drifting endlessly away – and also the dramatic, as if evoking the silent, restless turbulence of space. They manage to sound unhurried and patient, yet are in constant motion, covering vast distances almost imperceptibly, Earth becoming ever smaller and smaller as we venture out into space.

To support the feelings the album was intended to evoke, Salisbury wasn’t drawn to the usual sonic signifiers of science fiction. “I didn't want clean digital sounds that may have given the project a sterile feel,” says Salisbury. “I tried to inject a bit of noise, subtle distortion and general analogue warmth to the album; a more tactile, visceral feel to underscore that sense of unease.” That carefully-sculpted set of emotions can be heard most prominently on the track ‘From Home’, where Salisbury imagined one of his distant travellers receiving a letter from his family back on Earth.

The ‘Planetar’ project coalesced when Salisbury started working with Mark Holden to develop the two haunting films that accompany his pieces, both of which are full of the grace and simultaneously unknowable horror of space. These videos, crafted with a languid, slowly-evolving grandeur as we spin away from our earthly home, heighten the twin feelings of awe and fear that Salisbury sought to isolate with the album.

“I wanted ‘Planetar’ to be an emotionally resonant record,” says Salisbury.
“I wanted to create something that felt big and expansive that was at once an expression of the ambivalence and immensity of it all. There's this strange unsettling feeling of isolation, unease, beauty and an almost primal mystery to me when exploring a remote wilderness or swimming over a sudden drop off in a deep quiet lake where you're completely alone. Imagining this on an exponentially bigger scale was really important to me when writing this material.”