Pole - Fading (2LP)

Pole’s Fading is the kind of late-night record that seems to rearrange the room around you. Released in November 2020 on Mute, it finds Stefan Betke returning to the slow-blooming dub atmospheres that made his name, but with a different kind of weight. In interviews at the time he spoke about memory and loss, inspired in part by his mother’s dementia, and that thread is easy to hear. Nothing here is melodramatic. It is the sound of details slipping out of focus, bass anchoring the body while the high end smudges like chalk in the rain.

If you came up on the classic trilogy 1, 2 and 3, with their tactile crackle and woozy shuffle, there is a sense of homecoming. Betke’s signature palette is intact. Sub-bass that presses softly at the walls, soft-focus chords, and rhythms that feel less programmed than patiently coaxed into being. The old story about the broken 4-pole filter that gave Pole his name still feels relevant, not as mythology but as a way of listening. He is forever finding musical use in stray currents, in the scrape and hiss that other producers remove. On Fading those textures take on a diaristic quality. The crackle feels like old film stock, the space between notes like a pause where a thought used to be.

The title track lays out the map. There is a gentle lurch to the rhythm and a bassline that moves in slow arcs, almost comforting, while the top end flickers like fluorescent light. It never explodes, and that restraint is the point. Pole knows how to hold a mood without tightening the screws. Elsewhere he teases in faint melodic lines that seem to surface from below the mix, suggesting memory more than melody. A piece will hover for minutes on a single idea, yet the micro-movements are constant. Little kicks detune, echoes curl back on themselves, a hi-hat figure appears then recedes. It is meticulous, and it is human.

Part of the quiet thrill here is hearing how Betke’s craft has deepened. He runs Scape Mastering in Berlin, and you can hear those ears at work. The low end is warm and breathable, the midrange uncluttered, the treble soft but precise. On headphones the record feels like a private conversation. On speakers it opens out, the reverb fields taking on architecture of their own. That makes Fading vinyl an easy recommendation. The way the bass sits on a good turntable, the low-level detail of the static and room tone, all of it clicks into place. If you collect Pole albums on vinyl, this one earns its space.

Context matters with an artist like this. In the five years since Wald, a lot of minimalist dub and ambient-adjacent producers have borrowed Pole’s blueprint. Fading shows why the original still cuts through. It is not just the sound design, though that is exquisite. It is the temperament. Pole resists cliché. There are no big drops, no obvious cinematic swells, just careful decisions and the wisdom to leave air where air is needed. The music nods to the Basic Channel lineage, to the humid pulse of Berlin, but it is very much its own language.

Critical ears took notice. The album was widely reviewed by major publications that have followed Betke’s work since the 90s, and listeners who came in through the trilogy or Steingarten found familiar ground with new emotional stakes. No single track tries to be the anthem. The record works as a whole, which is why it rewards full plays rather than playlist dips. Sit with it and the shapes reveal themselves. The closing stretch, in particular, feels like a quiet walk home through empty streets, streetlights pooling on wet bitumen, everything slowed to the body’s pace.

If you are crate-digging or browsing late and thinking about where to start with Pole, this is a strong entry point. It carries the history without leaning on it, and it sounds beautiful on a decent setup. For those hunting Pole vinyl, you will find this sits comfortably next to the early trilogy and Wald. If you need to buy Pole records online, most reputable shops stock it, and a good Melbourne record store will often have a copy filed under leftfield electronic. Fans in vinyl records Australia circles rate it for the press quality and the way the ambience breathes. Quiet music, sure, but not passive. Fading is active listening made elegant, a study in how small sounds can feel enormous when the song around them knows when to speak and when to keep its peace.