This LP is remarkable, and not anything like what you would expect, leaving an impression on your mind like a spidery blue ink trail on a white sheet of paper.
DANIEL AGUST, formally of the dance collective Gus Gus, following in the footsteps of fellow Icelandic pixie-rockers Bjork and Sigur Ross, has created a dark, and surreal album, centred on exquisite string arrangements, tolling bells, and eerie and atmospheric samples.
“Intersection” is a great example, using silence as much as sound, delicate, almost classical arrangements, and screeching, mechanical, hideous wails of the brass section, all beneath the sharpening of knives and the creaking of door hinges – walking us through a torture guardian like invisible ghosts.
Other tracks are slightly more cheerful, “If You Leave Me Now”, is a touching soul number set above a deliciously baroque string arrangement, and sporadic industrial factory beats. The final track, “Love and Respect” is a teary, startling arrangement of heartbreaking proportions, literally dragging itself towards it's conclusion, whist Agust’s vocals whispers behind the violins, his voice nearly cracking on several occasions – a genuine tear-jerker if ever you heard one.
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The LP needs to be heard as a whole, rather than one track at a time. Through Agust’s songs, we are taken across glacial landscapes, over small harbours, into dark and secret rooms, across the water, underwater, and in and out of the maelstroms. This way you experience the bizarre journey that Agust is taking us on – a melancholic tour of the Icelandic landscape, or the landscape of the artist’s mind. It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, I imagine they could be one and the same.
Truly a thing of beauty.
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