The Land of Milk and Honey

Its been a long time since 2002 when I became obsessed with droney wee-wee glacier pop from our snowier blond friends in the northern part o europe and islands nearby.

hey, slow that shit down assholes: snow sounds like arppegiated chords with reverb and you know it.

well, back from the dead, the glacier pop has come. at least for this music listener. like I've said in the past I have become gradually more obsessed with the cold opaque liqueur these evil Denmarkian kings (and queens) pour into my ear. and I haven't even thrown myself into the Efterklang yet.

Anyhow, I'm here as your fishmonger to breathe new life into your snowy, albeit neglected, folders of your computers with Slaraffenland.

Their album Private Cinema is a triumph of atmosphere and a clever Broken Social Sceneish use of the horn section. Don't go looking for these guys to change your life any more than Sigur Ros did back in 2001, they're not trying to change your life. They're just trying to make your ears happy and use up all of the little O's with a line through it: ø which is a depletable resource that they mine from the ground in Iceland and Sweden.

How do you think they pay for their instruments to make pretty, fairy pop for us? Growing white asparagus and playing as elf extras in Lord of the Rings? Thats racist.

Slaraffenland - Polaroids

Polaroids begins with (gasp!) beautiful Aurora Borealises of flute, a snare and a bass kick in, an (what?) arpeggiated chord on an acoustic guitar, a chant/hymnal vocal line, an incredible horn section. and then you kick back and take a nap and watch the earth turn very slowly.

I'd very much like for you to go to their myspace page and listen to more of their music.

I'd also like if you listened to a song that pitchfork posted a while back thats even better than the one I played for you above. Which is here


and you should buy the whole album because its quite very good.

and now for something completely different:

Sami Sänpäkkilä

Alex brought home a li'l Finnish comp by Fonal records the other day. Once upon a time I may have said something to the degree of "this sounds like the faint played slow and backwards" These days, these days I've taken on that squall of sonic experimentation that Alex once represented to me and I've sailed straight through it leaving a Cap'n Guthrie shaped hole behind. I've been dubbed "the new Alex" by Ms. Sarah Appleby, musically at least. I hardly have a Masters in some useless ka-ka. Nay. I have a Masters of the Universe.

I'll take that Sarah. I'll take that.

So! Here we we we are. In Finland. Um. Theres lots of hot blonde people, lots of beard, lots of reeds. I feel like there are a lot of reeds in Finland.

The music is great for the most part. Trekking between dark laptop psych-folk and distinct eastern European gypsy sounds Fonal records seems to have itself a nice li'l package here.

And you thought the only good thing to come out of Northeast Europe was Black Metal and genocide. HA!

Es is the name Sami Sänpäkkilä (ow, my tongue) has given himself and his dark, ambient looping project. Les Fleurs Sont Des Bonnes Auditrices is so simple it could beat up Nancy Reagan's anti-drug slogan team and have room left over for a "book it" pizza party afterwards.

The rubato piano loop over crackling, creepy sing-songing voices and the occasional thunderclouds made of zeros and ones in the distance will brand themselves on your brain. I can't stop listening to it, its so very subtle.

Es - Les Fleurs Sont Des Bonnes Auditrices

Sami also does a little bit of video work (most of his music is designed for his videos) but he also works with other fonal records people including Risto, a pretty decent indie pop band with nonchalant singer and everything. but theres more cred here because they're singing in a different language!

check the Rakkauden Rock vid: