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Islet
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Description: | LP & download on Turnstile |
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| Format: | LP | |
| Genre(s): | Experimental Indie | |
| Label: | Turnstile | |
| Price: |
£12.49
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| Availability: | In stock. Dispatched in 1 working day. |
...according to our Mike on 18 January 2012.
These guys are a curious proposition. They throw together a whole mix of styles with slick abandon and this album comes across as a technicolour rush of disparate tunes and tones expertly blended together. I’m getting hints of Menomena, hints of Ponytail, hints of Gang Gang Dance, hints of Tune-yards, even a touch of New Zealand psych-indie nutters Orchestra of Spheres. Really busy indie-dance that flits between styles in imaginative and unforced ways without losing momentum. They’ll flit between barrelling krauty jams and shimmering balladeering with the greatest of ease and they’ve not forgotten to bring the tunes along to boot. There’s deliciously simple vocal melodies shared between a silky-voiced lady who brings to mind Beth Gibbons in the quieter moments and a guy whose voice reminds me a bit of Patrick Wolf. Some lovely bits of vocal harmony and counterpoint over the course of this album, too. It’s great to hear an indie record with really polished production values that’s still this exuberant and adventurous. Give me these guys over WU LYF any day.
• Islet announce their debut album, to be released on Shape (Turnstile). ‘Illuminated People’ follows 2010’s rapturously received pair of EPs – ‘Celebrate This Place’ and ‘Wimmy’ – which the NME described as being “a sonic boom in the face to anyone who might have thought they had something to hide”. A group who work under a strict autonomy, this is, as a result, their most cohesive sounding work to date.
• ‘Illuminated People’ marks a first in that the band have allowed someone other than themselves to take the reins on recording, with producer Drew Morgan stepping in to bring together what amounts to a montage of sprawling, searching sound.
• On this record the group’s third-eye opening mix of Gang Gang Dance- leaning rhythms and Kraut-reaching instrumental breakdowns can breathe, something that’s illustrated perfectly in the hugely ambitious nine minute opener ‘Libra Man’. There’s the still a clear sense of free abandon, of group members swapping instruments and songs forming from the nucleus of jams, half-ideas and fleeting thoughts re-visited and built on to take on entirely new meaning and structure. ‘Entwined Pines,’ for instance, starts out with ghostly choirs and wisp-on-the-wind vocals, skipping through noise rock and ending up as ferocious post-punk, without feeling overly forced or tacked on.
• Live they already have a burgeoning reputation. Spending the summer of 2011 playing festivals including Primavera, Leeds & Reading and Bestival, they beguiled onlookers with ritualistic chants, sometimes delivered away from the song being played on stage; at other times they were seen meandering off into the crowd. In person as in music, they seek to break down walls.
• You get a sense of freeform on ‘Illuminated People’, the sense of a group uninhibited by conventions, seeing the recording process in the way they see live performances; as a chance for expanse and experimentation. Indeed, Islet’s vision appears to be that of limitless possibilities, not in the sense of the po-faced pedal hoarder, but in the simple joy of exploration. That’s what ‘Illuminated People’ is; an album that drips with pride and the refusal to stand still, and ultimately one that fizzes with a sense of sheer enjoyment that came through making it.
• Vinyl comes with free MP3 download.
