No, but seriously, friends: Fever Ray.
I downloaded the full album, and I’ve gone from acquainted to committed in two days. My favorite song is “Now’s The Only Time I Know,” which track I’ve posted above. The percussive instrumentals, particularly at the opening of this song, are so seductive, so perfectly chosen, pacing the song with a graceful balance of precision and intrigue. My new favorite Tumblr, The Notes, posted a fantastic little review of the record back in January that describes it brilliantly:
3 years ago…brimming with enough voodoo marimba, moonlit pan-piping and laughing-skeleton steel drum to start a Gothic cruise line. Despite the busy instrumentals, pockets of negative space persist, carving Byzantine hard plastic shapes. …All this eerie tropical flavor is especially shocking given Fever Ray’s pre-released single, “If I Had A Heart,” which did post-apocalypse winter in shades of androgyny and drone and had its barely flickering thrum snuffed out like the malformed baby it might’ve been about, hinting not at the zombie limbo and handclaps of “Triangle Walks,” the zombie dub of “Concrete Walls,” or the general, all-around zombie-ness of “Coconut.” The undead have never been such a welcome surprise.
