Iron Winter by Luke Altmann

To coincide with the International Premiere of Kasimir Burgess’ cinematic documentary IRON WINTER at the 2025 Melbourne International Film Festival, de la Catessen proudly presents the original soundtrack recording by Luke Altmann, available in a hand-numbered edition of 250 LPs.

Iron Winter follows two young herdsmen from the Tsakhir Valley in their quest to keep their community’s herd of 2000 horses alive through Mongolia's harshest winter. The temperature regularly falls below -40°C as they drive their herd into the mountains in search of pastures under the snow. As deteriorating climatic conditions make winter herding even more gravely dangerous, and the city lures away the young people, this ancient traditional rite of passage has nearly entirely disappeared.

Through Iron Winter’s score the Mongolian landscape shimmers and shivers with harmonics. Endless snowscapes glisten and swish, but stress and upheaval are also evident in the score’s ominous murmurs. Tremors of imminent environmental and cultural collapse can be felt in the creak and clatter of the unseen, while tradition groans under the weight of obligation resting upon fewer and fewer shoulders. But, to the sound of a mysterious reveille, the courageous herders and their horses are pulled irresistibly deeper into the mountains, exacerbating their vulnerability to dire cold and starvation, to the accompaniment of the howling wolves of the steppe.