From Iceland — Dr. Zühlke and Mr. Eldon

Published May 25, 2009

Carving a smooth line from the cutesy, sweet-toothed openers into
darker territory towards the end, Alltihop’s eventual slide into
depression is so welcome that it practically renders the first
two-thirds of the album irrelevant. The first six tracks are so
perfectly circular and go-nowhere that after a while it feels like your
brain is turning sideways. Tiny cute bells and you-had-to-be-there
samples abound, and the distinct feeling you’ve heard this many, many
times before is unavoidable. Although they are technically the same
standard exercises in synth programming accompanied by those fucking
skittish, pitter-patter drum beats that just won’t go out of fashion,
the album closers have genuine emotional strength – something sadly
absent for the rest of the ride – and frankly, they aren’t interesting
enough to make it worth it. —SINDRI ELDON

Mikael Lind’s second album is eleven pieces of very laid-back and relaxing electronic music. Quite shy and discreet, “Alltihop” develops its qualities quite subtly: Lind has a very good sense for melody and maybe even more, he is a good composer as he piles up layer upon layer of different and beautiful synth parts. However, at a certain point this also reveals the biggest shortcoming of the album: the amount of Lind’s great ideas does not meet with the lifeless instrumental conversion – just synthesizer and a computer – at all. Mostly in more quiet parts as in “An Army Of Puppets,” the album is thin and somehow incomplete without a broader arrangement of instruments and can enfold neither emotion nor dynamics in the end. That is why “Alltihop” seems more a blueprint of a record. —FLORIAN ZÜHLKE