Jónsi
★★★ Shiver KRUNK. CD/DL/LP Unfocused solo album from Iceland’s musical maverick. The Sigur Rós frontman’s first solo album in 10 years concludes a spate of activity. Last year, he exhibited at an LA art gallery and issued the ambient-leaning Dark Morph album, made with Swedish artist Carl Michael Von Hausswolff (Anna’s father). A few months ago, he was on loop-guru Julianna Barwick’s Healing Is
A Miracle album. Shiver is produced by Brit tech-head Alexander Cook, whose highestprofile associate is Charli XCX. With broken beats, glitchiness and abrupt slabs of electronic noise redolent of Thom Yorke’s
Amina, the songs are sonic patchwork quilts. Liz Fraser and Robyn feature on a couple of tracks, and the more straightforward cuts work best. Salt Licorice (with Robyn) is relatively linear, Swill’s space allows the vocal melody to breath, and Grenade is agreeably restrained. In all, more a series of disconnected building blocks than a cohesive album. Kieron Tyler