Two tracks I absolutely can’t get out of my head this past week both have something indirectly to do with Baltimore synth poppers Future Islands.
The first, which you may remember from being on a recent mix of mine, is a Future Islands remix by the simply named Jones which features the female half of Beach House, Victoria Legrand. Still present are the soft keyboard sounds both Future Islands and Legrand are known for, but Jones adds a throbbing bass line to give the track more locomotion and a couple of more industrial layers to beef up the minimalist instrumentals of the original. Although the cut-ups of “My Little Dreamer” towards the end is a bit “DJ hokey”, it doesn’t take away that much from the overall brilliance of the track.
The second song is from the solo-effort of Future Island’s keyboardist Gerrit Welmers which goes by the name of Moss of Aura. Interesting enough, I found out about them from a Beach House tweet urging fellow tweeters (or twitter-ers?) to listen to some of his new material. The most gripping song from the new bunch in my opinion is “Tidal”. Simply constructed, Welmers ditches some of the Dan Deacon-esque electro lines he makes for Future Islands, and replaces them with gripping slow-moving melodies reminiscent of a more powerful version of Neon Indian’s “(If I Knew, I’d Tell You)”.
You can check out both tracks below:
Little Dream // Future Islands (Jones Remix ft. Victoria Legrand)
[UPDATE] From Welmers: “Right now I am finishing a new album that is way different than the others and I am way psyched about it. It will be finished within the week. Also, the Remix album will be out very soon.” AWESOME!
