They Come From Where the Sun Never Sets

Those plucky German label heads at Morr Records - home to acts like Duo 505 and Mum - have put together a little sampler called Music For Hairy Scary Monsters, which was released last week. The compilation includes some new and recent songs by mostly Icelandic groups in celebration of a couple events held there. (Feeling well traveled, yet?)

But the best joints on it are from the Brits featured on the album: the duo, ISAN. (I think the two songs they’ve contributed are new, but it’s hard to tell from the label’s broken English press release(pdf). Rather than "throwing" the events in Iceland, they "terminated" them.)

The MP3 samples I found were too short, but you can stream the full songs at Boomkat.

Their addiction to music finally put them in the streets.

The first Isan song on Monsters is a remix of Mum’s "Re-Spring My Sing Reverse". It sets in with an atmosphere on the cusp of tragedy with a pronounced rhythm, dark synths, and some glitched up, spectral Mum vocals. Then it hits the spot with a couple dark, overlapping electro melodies. Unfortunately, its stingy on the melodies, and loops them a few times, but the mood of the song is undeniably attractive. Also, the song has some interesting, but subtle, sound play; using breath as percussion, and taking a sample of the fuzz in the background of a record and chopping it up a bit.

The second, "Singing Bowl," is more Space Odyssey in its setting. You peacefully float through space with a sun on your back as they comfort you with distorted xylophones and wine glass rims, dispersing some crunchy drums here and there for good measure, as well. The wine glass rims get a bit too loud at times, but perhaps this is to add an element of danger to your journey.

Support NYC businesses, cop it at Other Music’s new digital store.