Music
A US synth-pop trio’s post-breakthrough album cranks up the angst and ropes in Debbie Harry.
From Future Islands, Levi Patel, Conor Oberst and the Map Room
The danger of going viral is that there’s both an expectation and a tendency for bands to revisit the scene of such success. For Future Islands – a North Carolinaraised synth trio now based in Baltimore – their contagious moment came when they played Seasons (Waiting on You) on the Late Show with David Letterman in
2014 and the video of frontman Samuel Herring’s wild-eyed, chest-thumping, howling, growling, prowling performance took the internet by storm.
After the best part of a decade on the indie circuit, they suddenly found themselves with a hit album, Singles, and a host of fans who expected more of the lovelorn melodrama and heart-rending songs that swell into Herring’s death-metal snarl.
Their touring Singles gave fans exactly what they wanted, but the follow-up, The Far Field, was a tougher ask: give fans more of the same and risk being typecast, or strike out in a new direction and risk being a one-hit wonder?
With their mournful synth washes, danceable bass and beats and personal tales of love that brush dangerously close to self-harm, Aladdin, Beauty of the Road and Ran push the same buttons as Seasons. But by the time you get to Cave and North Star, it’s obvious there are efforts to create a lusher sound and have more fun with arrangements – specifically the odd bursts of strings, horns and Gerrit Welmers’ keys.
Much of this richness comes from newly recruited producer John Congleton, who arranged for Debbie Harry to duet on Shadows, and also to head to LA’s Sunset Sound studio to try to soak up any traces of Prince, Van Halen and the Beach Boys that remained within its walls.
When they wander too far from Seasons’ path, they occasionally stumble – Candles is too twee – but when Herring returns to such hyperbole as “Hurricanes … fire and chains … falling planes can’t keep me away from you”, the desolate boldness is enthralling.
THE FAR FIELD, Future Islands (Rhythmethod)
Auckland’s Levi Patel has no reason to stoop to melodrama to evoke strong emotions. Previous EPs – 2014’s Forms and 2015’s Of Sleep and Time – have shown how his ambient compositions can swirl from pensive stillness to warmth and sadness, but his first fulllengther, Affinity, takes a brave step towards a fuller sound, mixing more live instruments with his synth soundscapes to let each track breathe and swell. Although there’s a tendency to hear his music as soundtrack material – Since Last Letters was commissioned for a documentary on a South Korean ferry disaster – there’s still gentle delight within tracks such as And She Translated Into the Sky and an anthemic Sigur Rós-style strength to As We Fall Into Static that make him clearly one of our leading composers.
AFFINITY, Levi Patel (Marigold Music)
This year’s ultimate act of revisiting success must be Conor Oberst’s Salutations. It takes last year’s introspective acoustic Ruminations, adds a celeb band (including the Felice Brothers, Gillian Welch, Jim James and M Ward) and seven new tracks (including the Pogues-ish Afterthought and Dylanesque Napalm), and delivers a mix of outstanding songwriting and rip-roaring folk rock.
SALUTATIONS, Conor Oberst (Warner)
Simon Gooding and Brendon Morrow’s first outing as the Map Room was a beautiful exercise in indie sleepwalking. For their second effort, they take a beats- and keys-driven left turn into warm pop territory. Weatherless is a lush, layered album driven by bouncing, thoroughly danceable tracks, such as Colour, Other Animal and I Don’t Mind, and anchored by strong songwriting and the pair’s great vocals.
WEATHERLESS, the Map Room (Aeroplane)