This is Oh Land. She makes Quite Serious music. There are electronic influences. Basically, it's a bit like somebody put Björk and Lykke Li in a blender after straining out the more boring bits on their recent albums (c'mon, Lykke Li's album was pretty boring).
Her album has a merman on the cover! Except it's like in those jokes where the mermaid has the head of a fish and the legs of a person.
:(
You might also have noticed the Björky text bubble there. You might think it's a coincidence, but it's probably calculated because a) I thought this was a new Björk song called Oh Land Fauna when I saw it at first and b) the best song on the album is sort of like The Dull Flame of Desire except shorter and therefore better. Well, it's at least less time-consuming.
Elsewhere, songs like Heavy Eyes mix punchy electronic beats with choral backing vocals (think the theme from Candyman gone wonderfully pop) to create pop that's at once menacing and enjoyably infectious. It's very instant, but it still grows on you. What draws you in at first might not be what keeps you coming back for more once you start to notice the sophisticated piano, the occasional delicate percussion and the various clicks and whirrs that give the album its charm. And let's not even get started on the harmonies (actually let's - they're amazing).
The long and the short of it is the album is really very good and it's one of the Scandinavian releases of last year that you should have got instead of Youth Novels. You should rectify that now. If you still need convincing, here's Frostbite.
Oh Land on Myspace
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