Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.08.2014, Side 29

29The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 13 — 2014 MUSIC
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GUÐMUNDUR KRISTI
NSSON
THE SUMMERLAND
The Deceased
describe their
Passing and Reun
ion
in the Other World
THE SUM
M
ERLAND
GUÐM
UNDUR
Á
rnesútgáfan
Iceland - 2014
In this book are conver-
sations with deceased
persons and the author’s
son who was killed in
a car-accident and the
author’s brother-in-
law who was killed
E\D8%RDWLQ 
– about their passing
and what happened to
them afterwards. We
have conversations
with GHFHDVHG%ULWLVK
DLUPHQ from WWII
and &DSWDLQ5LFKDUG
'XUVW of U.S. 5th
Infantry Division.
We read about Horace
S. Hambling’s unique mediumship and how
3UHVLGHQW/LQFROQ was urged from the Beyond
to proclaim freedom of the slaves. Visions during
a holiday trip abroad and at deathbeds and
IXQHUDOV. And of a Traveller in the Spirit World.
Gusgus - Mexico
2014
www.gusgus.com
Slick, brazen party music that
moves hearts as well as feet
Gusgus didn't seem like a
band that was in it for the
long haul. Starting as a
loosely strung collective of
musicians, filmmakers, producers and
vocalists, they seemed to the outsider
like a mercurial proposition—a
bubbling experimental formula with
equal potential to expand, evaporate
or explode. But after nine studio
albums made over
almost two dec-
ades, Gusgus would
be an essential in-
clusion on the Per-
iodic Table of Ice-
landic Bands. They've not only
continued, but thrived, recently
coming into a run of form so rich as to
become happily confounding.
Along the way, they've shed skins
more times than an old corn snake,
emerging each time in an incarnation
more colourful than the last. Initially a
sprawling twelve-person ambient-pop
troupe, the band gradually reduced
in number to just the duo of perma-
members and production mainstays
President Bongo and Biggi Veira
around the turn of the millennium,
before flowering once more into the
slick and entertaining house-techno
project of today.
‘24/7’ was the album that
announced the band's latest
iteration—a pulsing, organic series of
sensual anthems. Vocalist Daníel Ágúst
rejoined, injected a sense of warm
humanity onto a kinetic foundation
of 4x4 rhythm, moving not just the
audience's feet, but their hearts too.
The lush and luxuriant ‘Arabian Horse’
followed, refining the sound further
and adding new personalities to the
mix via a return of the breathy, feminine
elegance of Earth and the arrival of the
rich baritone of Högni Egilsson. And
now, in what feels like the completion
of a classic trilogy, comes the sticky
heat of ‘Mexico.’
It's an album brimming with
earworm melodies from the outset.
"Obnoxiously Sexual" is the opener—a
perfect pop single, seductive and
insistent, pulsing with bass and
bristling with synth hooks. But when a
string quartet and then a brass band
swoop in out of nowhere to light up
the track, it's immediately obvious
that ‘Mexico’ is something special. It's
not just a honed
and crafted house-
techno-pop record,
but a bold reworking
of the Gusgus brand
of dance music.
‘Mexico’ is accessible and commercial,
sure, but the album’s assured, crafted
and somewhat brazen party music
also feels like a creative and artistic
success.
It's an album studded with
singles—the simmering vocal of
"Sustain" glides above persuasive
micro-melodies; "Another Life" is a
propulsive track fuelled by echoing
string-stabs and some excellent
treated vocals. "God Application" feels
catchy and light, but lyrically explores
the rich territory of relationship
regret; "Crossfade" is a pop song so
compulsive as to become an immediate
obsession for many, spreading on
social media faster than a video of a
kitten in a shoebox.
Before its oddly muted final
song, the album climaxes with "Not
The First Time," an epic track that
talks about the need for continued
evolution and renewal—perhaps the
very thing that Gusgus do best. Due to
their consistent creative mutation, the
combustible chemistry of the project
held together, maturing and stabilizing
over time. They're a band in fearsome
shape and at the absolute top of their
game—the elemental force they've
become is something to behold.
- JOHN ROGERS
Album
Reviews
“It's an album brimming
with earworm melodies
from the outset.”