Music News In Brief: Cryptochrome, Sigur Rós, The Kraumur Awards and more!

Mysterious melty-faced trio GANGLY are pros at testing our patience, releasing one…killer…steady…track…at…a…time. This past week they put out their third track and video for the single ‘Blow Out.’ The track is as meticulous and haunting as the TV murderer Dexter, and the video plunges listeners back into the warped metallic world that they created with ‘Fuck With Someone Else’ and ‘Holy Grounds.’ Perfectly on pace to keep us interested and begging for more. “Hold your breath now…”

In the in-between realm we found Cryptochrome’s eleventh and final video release off of their album ‘More Human.’ “We’ve become less and less human/sacrificing all we have for industry” raps Anik while his bandmate, Una, ascends into a rainbow. The video is the last in an ambitious line of videos that the duo set out to make at the beginning of this year. The idea was to release one video per month, for each track on the album. “More Human” closes that project with the familiar otherworld directed by Logi Hilmarsson.

Bringing it back down to the streets, Vil released a video for the single ‘På plads’ off of their forthcoming album ‘Mens Vi Falder Stille.’ The video was shot in Tokyo by Jonas Rothlaender and Eva-Maria Koskinen.  It’s “for the polar bear in all of us,” the artists write. And also for the slo-mo slow-fi Danish electronic music listener in all of us. Their above mentioned debut album comes out on February 3 via Listen Records.

Vil – På plads [official video] from Vil on Vimeo.

Since we’re on the topic of things forthcoming, Ásgeir posted a video to his Facebook page suggesting new material coming in 2017. But, unfortunately for eager fans, that’s all we’ve got. A quick minute clip of some black and white shots, followed by the words…“Ásgeir” and then…“2017.” At least the man is concise.

In other news, on other continents, Sigur Rós announced their schedule for their 2017 North America tour which will stretch from Mexico City in early April to Queens, New York by mid-June. They’re heading out with “the spirit of adventure,” they write on the website, going back to a time “when we worked stuff out on the road, and trying to capture lightening in a bottle was a problem for the studio later on…in addition to playing songs you know, we wanted to remember the seat-of-your-pants feeling experiences in the wake ágætis byrjun…” There will be old, there will be new-old, and there will be new-new.  Like an antiques fair. The most sparkling post-rock searing lunar magic antique fair ever. “We can only ask you to trust us on this one,” they say. It’s not too much to ask.

Finally, it’s the season of lists. Lists for Santa, lists to to-dos and what-you-dids, and lots and lots and lots of ‘looking back.’ The annual Kraumur Awards was held on December 15 to recognize their top six albums of the 2016. Congratulations to this year’s group!

Alvia Islandia – ‘Bubblegum Bitch’
amiina – ‘Fantomas’
GKR – ‘GKR’
Gyða Valtýsdóttir – ‘Epicycle’
Kælan Mikla – ‘Kælan Mikla’
Páll Ívan frá Eiðum – ’This Is My Shit’