Album Review: Gandalf’s Owl – Who’s The Dreamer?

Gandalf’s Owl
Who’s The Dreamer?
Club Inferno Ent.
★★★

Gandolfo Ferro is a musical explorer. From his work with The Opera and Heimdall, his self-assurance for experimentation always stands out. As Gandalf’s Owl, he can stretch across landscapes and moods to create paintings of gentle contemplation or tormented isolation. Who’s The Dreamer? is a dimensional approach to an ambient landscape, pushing out swathes of tones and layering to create a crispness to the debut.

“Winterfell” is you standing against nature and its aptitude for snow-covered squalls of synth sounds. This is the dominance that consumes Who’s The Dreamer? In Ferro’s synth work, there is a sense of longing that consumes the listener. What the longing leads to is listener’s perspective. Seagulls accentuating open musical space, notes on “White Arbour” get softened by its own dynamics.

On the opposite end, “A Dwarf in the Lodge, Pts. I and II” is ambient Bosch. Like the eater of souls, the tormented lie in the distance, howling into eternity. It’s conflicting to the gentleness that creeps up in his music. It pulls you away from the ease of simplicity. It’s not so much distracting as it is a simple mood directive pushing the listener towards the darkness.

Who’s The Dreamer? is a comfortable release, allowing the sounds to speak for themselves. We walk through Ferro’s imaginative world whether it is cowering under twisted branches or gazing across frozen waters into uncharted territory. This dreamlike haze is just beginning.