We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Dark Sm​å​land

by The Instruments

supported by
Scott Meade
Scott Meade thumbnail
scabface
scabface thumbnail
/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $8 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Dark Småland via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD or more 

     

1.
Ode To the Sea 03:18
buy track
2.
Ode Pt. 2 02:04
buy track
3.
Sound Electric 03:25
buy track
4.
Arabesque 03:00
buy track
5.
Mountain Song 02:36
buy track
6.
Pastorale 03:15
buy track
7.
First Signs 04:20
buy track
8.
Paths of Low Flying Birds 02:50
buy track
9.
Cello Ballad 04:40
buy track
10.
Early Lights 03:05
buy track
11.
Northern Skies 03:56
buy track
12.
Papillion 02:40
buy track

about

Centered around the varied and estimable talents of longtime Elephant 6 collaborator Heather McIntosh, The Instruments' new record culls from such disparate and beautiful influences as Sufi Devotional Music, the old country waltz, Nico's dunn cathedrals of song, and atmospherically harmonic pop emanating from somewhere way out near Eno's weird Green World. "Dark Småland" is resplendent with all the esoteric and sophisticated detail you'd expect from McIntosh and her two different crews of Instruments, though it never loses touch with the rarefied and dynamic melodic sense she's developed through years of performing with heavies like Circulatory System, Elf Power, Japancakes, Kevin Ayers, of Montreal and Gnarls Barkley. As dense and layered as this album gets, it is at its core an elegantly melancholic folk-pop record sweetly at home in your heart next to Richard and Linda Thompson's most beautiful, hymnic monuments or the vestigial ghost of some ancient lullaby from your longlost childhood.
Recorded between Athens and Brooklyn over the past year with essentially two different bands, "Dark Småland" nevertheless finds a collaborative songwriterly fulcrum in the trio of McIntosh, drummer Eric Harris, and guitarist Derek Almstead, who engineered a great deal of the album's foundational tracks at his own Pixel Studios. Indigenously Athenian-seeming in its broad scope of instrumentation, the record features contributions from a host of E6 stalwarts, including Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel and Will Cullen Hart, John Fernandes and Peter Erchick, all of whom partnered with Harris in The Olivia Tremor Control. Truly, these visionaries' offerings color "Dark Småland" wonderfully, but the primary emotional impact of this record hinges fully on the edifying low-end plaint of Heather's brooding cello. Just as Charlie Mingus flipped the script in jazz and made his bass the driver of his genius sensibility, Heather constructs an unlikely and wholly rewarding pop aesthetic with her atypical primary axe. And her bucolic, imagistic lyrics work perfectly within the boundless and sonorous sonic vista she creates in her "Dark Småland"; as close as this record sometimes feels to a dark night of the soul, it leaves a listener hopeful and bright and willing to return.

credits

released May 13, 2008

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Orange Twin Records Athens, Georgia

contact / help

Contact Orange Twin Records

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Dark Småland, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Saxophonist Isaiah Collier chats about his new LP and the influence of Pharoah Sanders.
listen now