Reykjavík Grapevine - 31.07.2015, Qupperneq 33

33The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 11 — 2015 MUSIC
The opening track “Like A Bird”
is well-named because it really
does resemble the output of
Mr. Oizo of Flat Beat fame. The
blobby beats and tinkly top-end of “Throw
It Away,” married to an insistent beat and
strange squeezebox-esque sound, are a
typically playful trick of Signout, aka Bjar-
nar Jónsson. Meanwhile, “Hear My Sweet
Orange” seems like it’s going to explode
into The Prodigy’s “Charly” before swerv-
ing into more ambient territory—the little
trickster.
A particular highlight is the more soni-
cally experimental “Get Me Back,” a poly-
rhythmic, angular exploration of move-
ment and dynamics. If C3PO got pilled up,
this is what he’d listen to, and break out
some badass body popping. There’s oc-
casionally a hint of menace, too: the pad
sweeps and lonely bells of “Bad Girl” swell
and eddy in and out of the speakers with
those unsettling brass-glass overtones
firmly in play. It’s not quite Enigma, but it’s
a buzzing, bizarre cousin to those electric
monks.
In general, this is a collection of tracks
that take full advantage of sonic and ste-
reo spaces, providing rhythms and fre-
quencies designed to flutter the heart,
tickle the brain and get the feet itching.
- JOE SHOOMAN
A collaboration between
Frosti Jónsson and Japa-
nese ambient drone artist
Nobuto Suda, this four-
and-a-half track suite falls deeply
into the territory of epictronica. It
all begins with the water-trickling,
expanding pad sounds of “Flumine,”
the music yawning awake as a brand
new day dawns with a swelling deli-
cacy and heartbeat. “Blue Sky So
Beautiful” follows, with its saw-tooth
distortions, Ultravox-y rhythms and
beckoning sub-bass; the sound of
4am in the chillout tent. “River Never
Ends” melds some half-heard vocal
samples with ethereal vox, tinkling
chimes and half-arpeggios, drawing
the listener deep inside the speakers
as melodies and layers play around
and about the stereo field and the
song again rises in crescendo before
a diminuendo toward a snow-tread
ending.
“Poems In The Sand” is as beauti-
ful as the title; the gorgeousness is
in the transience, a slow-building
piece of music that has a hint of
the 1980s about it. The experience
comes to a much more ambient end
with the ambitious “Glacier,” which
draws on the elements that pre-
ceded it to create a soundscape rich
with the smooth surfaces of drawn-
out, undulating chords and strewn
with jagged-edged darting rhythms.
Some records are like short story
collections, with tracks linked by vir-
tue only of a common author or style.
This record is like a novel, which is
not complete til the last page of the
last song, the last fade of the dying
chords a full stop that leaves a si-
lence of absence, having wiped the
world away.
- JOE SHOOMAN
Album
Reviews
Mr. Signout
‘I Got A Feeling’
facebook.com/Mr-Signout
Tune in, turn up,
sign out
Bistro Boy & Nobuto Suda
'Rivers & Poems'
www.bistroboy.net
Supine sonics and sublime
splashes