Islands (Arcade Fire) - A Sleep & A Forgetting

Islands’ new album ‘A Sleep & A Forgetting’ continues the band’s penchant for crafting adventuresome and infectious state of the art pop music. But this time band leader Nick Thorburn has infused the songs with a personal introspection that gives the record a new and powerful emotional resonance.  

“This album is far more personal than any I’ve made before” Thorburn explains. “I left New York after the end of a relationship and came to Los Angeles. There was a piano where I was staying and that’s where I wrote these songs. This record deals with loss, with memory and forgetting and with dreaming. I started writing it on Valentine’s Day and it’s coming out around Valentine’s Day”.  

The new album was produced by Thorburn and fellow Islands member Evan Gordon in less than two weeks, the 11 songs recorded live with hardly a single overdub. It’s a stripped down process and beautifully understated sound which only reinforces the confessional content of the lyrics. This comes together to striking effect on songs like the darkly dramatic ‘Oh Maria’, written in the voice of Buddy Holly’s anguished young widow and her recurring crash site dreams.

“She would have these dreams about being in the field where his plane went down”” - Thorburn says. “She would be trying desperately to get past all the bystanders to see him one last time. It’s such an evocative story it just stuck with me. And it’s absolutely consistent with the album’s themes of heartbreak, death and dreaming”.  

Far from being self-pitying, ‘A Sleep & A Forgetting’ powerfully transforms personal unrest into affecting and soulful pop music.

Islands will be touring throughout 2012.
Thorburn and Islands have been indie darlings since making a splash with their 2006 debut, ‘Return To The Sea’, performed with a cast of characters from Montreal's thriving music scene (including members of Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade).

For fans of Bon Iver, Neko Case, The Antlers, Girls and The xx.

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