It feels like just yesterday that we were waxing ecstatic about Indians' debut 7", a record that seemed to drop out of nowhere (actually, Copenhagen) fully formed. A couple seasons and an expired year have come and gone since then, and now we have a full-length, perfectly timed for the dead of winter in America. Soren Lokke Juul's icy, minimalist dioramas conjure images of the northern lands from where he hails, utilizing a naturalistic simplicity that feels familiar in all the right ways. At times it comes across as a more modern take on folk music -- the kind of melodies and songs that have been working their way through the collective unconscious for thousands of years.
Juul wisely hews close to this template here, taking what was already a fully realized vision and filling it out with a slightly more expansive sound. Where tracks like "New" referenced the folk tradition as interpreted by synths, there are more formal nods here, with new songs like "Cakelakers" and "I Am Haunted" employing acoustic guitar as the backbone of the song. Juul seems to be cultivating his melodic ear even further on the aforementioned tracks, almost resembling a young James Mercer in his melodic choices and vocal inflections. Fear not though, the drum machines haven't been put on permanent ice yet, and "La Femme" is an uncharacteristically upbeat outing, sounding like a chance meeting between a less... well, young, Grimes and a more subtle OMD. It's what we've all been waiting for! Dress up a like a baby seal, charter a steamer to the last solid ice field in the North Pole and jam this out the on-board foghorn speakers to the polar bears as they scurry for a solid seat to take it in. Dreams come true, y'all.
-Jon Treneff
"New"
"I Am Haunted"
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