Track Of Issue: M-Band’s “All Is Love”

“All Is Love” starts off quietly, with skittering percussion and a burbling post-dubstep bassline. About 25 seconds in, comforting vocals arise seemingly from the depths of the beat, slowly but surely soaring higher and higher. The man behind M-Band, Hörður Bjarnason, possesses a voice that rests somewhere between James Blake and Antony and the Johnsons. Soon, buoyant synths join in, beautifully intertwining with the vocals with hypnotizing effectiveness. Close your eyes and it’s hard to place yourself anywhere but the sky, airborne with the vocals and synths, as the bass and percussion bubble and pop below in a clattering ocean of sound. After the song reaches its reverb-drowned climax, the beat steadily strips away, leaving nothing but a dusty jazz hi-hat—an almost-anachronistic element representing the song’s new-school and old-school blend. As the beat swells and contracts around him, Hörður steadily croons, “…and all is love…” with such assuredness that it is impossible not to believe him.

You can download the track here or listen to it below.