There are places in the world for landscape music.<\/p>\n
Candle stores, for one. There\u2019s nothing like shopping for sandalwood scented and ginger peach candles amid a lush cavalcade of woodwinds and atmospherics. Or massage parlors (no, not those massage parlors), the ones with hot stones, mud baths and manicures at $75 a hour. I can dig me some serious landscape music in a place like that.<\/p>\n
Iceland is a place like that, with its lava-warmed springs, northern lights and frozen waterfalls \u2014 it feels like a world of privilege. White Mountain, the solo debut from \u00dalfur Hansson (touring bassist for J\u00f3nsi), firmly captures this soothing tactile but too often to the album\u2019s detriment. Take the landscape music out of the spa, and it doesn\u2019t resonate, it bores.<\/p>\n
In interviews Hansson has noted each track is \u201ca collage of field-recordings made while traveling,\u201d and while there are intriguing sounds throughout, they shift at the speed of glaciers (pre-Global Warming). \u201cEvoke Ewok\u201d opens the album with a minute of seagull calls before a quiet electronic buzz begins its steady assault. It\u2019s so calming that the gentle strumming of acoustic guitar three minutes in is somewhat startling.<\/p>\n
The cinematic \u201cSo Very Strange\u201d is a bit more sinister, as Hansson layers lyrics from Mountain Man\u2019s Alexandra Sauser-Monnig for a piece that breaks into Sigur Ros territory, not surprising considering his ties with the band. \u201cBlack Shore\u201d is the most electronic of the album\u2019s tracks, it carries Radiohead DNA but in a subtle, muted tone. It has promise, but never becomes unglued and galvanized in the beautiful manner set forth by Thom York and his mates.<\/p>\n
And on it goes. Perhaps living in a land with seasons where the sun never sets curbs the anxiety. I wanted the album to break out and show exuberance, but it doesn\u2019t, preferring to tickle the piano\u2019s highest treble strings, or linger in moody modulations. The album\u2019s final song is called \u201cMolasses\u201d for crying out loud. Plaque build-up moves faster.<\/p>\n
So no, I\u2019m not pulling this album up on my iPod for a casual listen in the car, or to work out at the gym, or really for anything that doesn\u2019t involve a deep tissue message. But there\u2019s that, which isn\u2019t all bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are places in the world for landscape music. Candle stores, for one. There\u2019s nothing like shopping for sandalwood scented and ginger peach candles amid a lush cavalcade of woodwinds and atmospherics. Or massage parlors (no, not those massage parlors), the ones with hot stones, mud baths and manicures at $75 a hour. I can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[398,399],"class_list":["post-1361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-ulfur","tag-white-mountain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1363,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361\/revisions\/1363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}