Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.05.2013, Blaðsíða 27

27
Úlfur Sin Fang
Tanya And Marlon
Kontinuum
White Mountain
2013
http://ulfurhansson.com
A promising debut with room to grow
Flowers
2013
http://www.heysinfang.com/
Another album, another beard cover;
a lush garden of nostalgia
Quillock
2012
www.mollerrecords.com
Mellowish indeed
Earth Blood Magic
2012
facebook.com/kontinuumice
An album divided cannot stand.
Beneath the Norwegian black metal font and
gray glacial formations on its cover, listeners
will unexpectedly find some of the warmest
and most redemptive music produced in
recent memory. Úlfur Hansson’s solo debut
‘White Mountain’ has been available in Japan
for a year, but 2013 heralds its official release to
a wider audience via Western Vinyl.
Úlfur has forged this record from
gentle synths and a collection of personal
field recordings. The project has a strong
gravitational pull toward the music coming
from the “cassette label Renaissance”
happening in the United States right now. Its
brief, meditative pieces, rich analog timbres,
and ambient/environmental samples blend
to convey a little biological warmth amidst
soundscapes made mostly from machines.
A short album, only slightly too long for a
C-30 cassette, ‘White Mountain’ would sit
comfortably within the discographies of labels
like Field Hymns or Tranquility tapes.
As it aspires toward such deeply
personal spaces, ‘White Mountain’ sometimes
feels a touch too intimate, its secrets kept
just out of reach from more universal appeal.
But it continues to open up with repeated
listening. As a debut, it initiates a thoughtful
conversation that hopefully perseveres into
future recordings. - Scott Scholz
Picture the last fleeting moments of your
life, the minutes, or in most cases seconds
you have to live. What do you suppose
would occupy your last thoughts? Likely
an overwhelming barrage of things, but
amidst your inevitable cognition of the end
I believe one would reflect back on their life
and hearken through endless memories…
An overflowing, beautifully forlorn sense of
nostalgia. This is Sin Fang's ‘Flowers’…
Listening to ‘Flowers’ is like releasing
the floodgates of dopamine and memories
to the brain, a torrent of pleasure centres
brought on by lush and dynamic dreamy
folk-pop beautifully ensconced with elegant
synths, bass, horns, strings, drums, and
Sindri's soothing vocals. The album droops
and swells between profound and whimsical,
evoking a cornucopia of emotions within
the listener… It seeps into your psyche and
lingers, this is why it is so powerful.
Its decadent evocative qualities are
not the only strong-suit here. ‘Flowers’ is
undeniably fun and infectious. I really don't
think I am capable of listening to 'Flowers'
without singing along (badly), whistling
in unison to the tooting horns or tapping
incessantly away to the rhythmic drums.
The sound is rich and expansive, heavily
emblazoned with the trademark sound of
producer Alex Somers (of Jónsi & Alex). The
entire album emits this warmth. It's like being
hugged by the sun, or more suitably, like
taking a dip in a natural Icelandic hotpot—
relaxing, cosy, mollifying and perfect with a
couple of beers and some good company.
- Chris D’Alessandro
‘Quillock,’ the debut EP from Tanya And
Marlon (of PLX and Anonymous), sees
these stalwarts of Iceland’s electronica
scene expand their old-school influenced
bass groove to something wider and less
aggressive—not so much in yer face, but
drifting into inner space.
Some sections of this EP certainly strike
a chord. The opener “Melodies,” with dreamy
throbbing pads and the sound of children’s
play and rainfall, gives you a warm hint of
past memories, the same feeling you’d likely
get from a Boards Of Canada song. There’s
also the AtomMax remix of “Mellowish,” (the
best track on the EP), doing a seamless job
of weaving samples with a heavy ambient
dub undercurrent that takes the original
somewhere else completely different.
Alas, some of the tracks don’t quite
hit the mark for me. “New Day” falls back
on the off-kilter glitch-y rhythms that don’t
add anything to the overall sound, while the
second “Mellowish” remix from Bypass opts
for a rinsed minimal house beat that only
shakes up some kind of energy in the last
two minutes. But there’s certainly more than
enough on ‘Quillock’ for fans of Icelandic
electronica to dip their brains into.
- Bob Cluness
The majority of Kontinuum’s Candlelight
Records debut, ‘Earth Blood Magic,’ feels
painstakingly familiar. The first three tracks
pass without any bearing on memory.
On paper the marriage between choral,
avant-garde folk metal with traditional doom
sounds exciting, yet on record it falls short of
anything spectacular.
On “Stranger Air,” there’s a sense of
confidence and maturity in the track’s patient
roll. There’s air on the track and it creates
for beautiful atmosphere, both delicate and
earnest. However, after this brief detour into
expressive songwriting, the album returns to
its humdrum ways.
The album is entertaining in parts—the
progressive black-metal of “Lightbearer,” the
guitar work on “Lýs Milda Ljós”—but it rarely
takes the next step to engage completely. Not
only that, you get the feeling Kontinuum felt
comfortable not taking that step, maintaining
control but never straying from the path it set
for itself. “Risk” and “emotion” are not words I
would associate with Kontinuum’s effort here,
rendering it dull. - Dru Morrison
A
lb
um
Review
s
sushisamba
Þingholtsstræti 5 • 101 Reykjavík
Tel 568 6600 • sushisamba.is
Laugavegur
HverfisgataL
æ
kj
ar
ga
ta
Sk
ó
la
st
ræ
ti
Þ
in
g
h
o
lt
ss
tr
æ
ti
S
kó
lavö
rð
ust.
Amtmannsstígur
In
g
ó
lf
ss
tr
æ
ti
Lækjar-
torg
Our kitchen is open
17.00–23.00 sun.–thu.
17.00–24.00 fri.–sat.
Starts with a shot of icelandic
nacional spirit "Brennivin"
Place Ceviche
Dried maize, sweet potato, coriander, chili,
passion sauce
Minke whale tataki
Fig jam, wakame, mushrooms, soy glaze
Icelandic Salmon roll
Salmon, avocado, asparagus, jalapeno mayo
Spotted cat fish "mojito style"
Grilled spotted cat fish, pea purée, bacon,
mojito foam
Lamb ribs
Chili crumble, "Skyr" mint sauce, celeriac fries
Icelandic Skyr "Flan"
5.990 kr.
Amazing 6 course menu which combines
Icelands best produce withJapanese,
Peruvian and Brazilian cuisine.
Icelandic Feast
unique experience