Brighter Days Ahead - Straumur

Straumur

First things first, we’d like to thank Phédre, Ken Park, Nolo and everybody who showed up for our summer celebration at KEX on May 3. The hostel was crammed with exciting music, people and good vibes. Thank you!

With that out of the way, we have a lot of new music to share. Over the last month we have been listening        to a lot of Myndra, a three-piece indie band led by the Icelandic singer-songwriter and  guitarist Linus            Orri, who was once  a member of Just Another Snake Cult.Linus met his two Canadian bandmates after     agreeing to host them in Iceland through Couchsurfing. He then went to Rimouski in Canada to record an     album with them. The outcome is the fantastic ‘Songs From Your Collarbone’ out in June. Check them         out online.

Twenty-year-old Sigurður Ýmir who makes beats under the name Pretty Please just released a hazy new song called “100kg” that has us bouncing while we dream of summer parties and happy days. The track is currently streaming on his SoundCloud, just waiting for you to push play.

Finally, FM Belfast’s long awaited third LP, ‘Brighter Days,’ landed on April 22 and it was well worth the wait. It retains the spirit of exuberant electronic joy that inhabited their earlier albums but the song writing is more mature and the sonic palette bigger. The song “Ears,” for example, juxtaposes a distorted hip-hop beat reminiscent of Boards of Canada with a funky slap bass and moody melancholic synth melody.

Delorean is a glorious ever-building and grinding journey with virtuosic synthesiser  workouts. Their newest album sees more diverse and complex vocal arrangements. Their   trademark elongated echo falsettos have been toned down a bit, which is a good thing  because, although enjoyable, they might have become a bit gimmicky by the third album.     They still have their giddy goofiness and sense of humour. “We Are Faster Than You” has    a shuffling beat and a tiny synthesiser arpeggio combined with playground chants of  nanananas, and jaunty saxophone mini-solos. The whole album is a warehouse of  rejoicing and is bound to produce buckets of smiles and booty-shaking this summer.