Future Islands - Undressed

This is a good one. Four Future Islands favourites re-recorded and re-imagined with a band in full acoustic mode. I'm a big Future Island's fan and I'm surprised how well these tracks have translated to the 'acoustic' format. Once upon a time you'd have to depend on MTV unplugged if you wanted to hear bands monkey about with their material in such an abstract fashion so I applaud the band and the label for making these recordings available on vinyl. As you can imagine the music here is stripped back to the bare basics with cello and piano providing the melodic support and roomy drums providing the solid back beat. I guess Future Islands write proper emotive pop music so to reinterpret the material in this way doesn't sound as drastic as it seems and gives Welmers voice plenty of room to do his thing...which he does incredibly. It'd be a strange place to start if this was your first exposure to the band but as a longtime listener this is essential, especially for the alternative versions of 'An Apology' and 'In the Fall'. Versatile fellers indeed.