Kate Bush

This Will Destroy You

Guest Playlist: This Will Destroy You’s Shining Void Mix

This Will Destroy You: Tunnel BlanketThis Will Destroy You: Tunnel Blanket (Suicide Squeeze, 5/10/11)

This Will Destroy You: “Communal Blood”

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Instrumental-rock quartet This Will Destroy You coined a new term to describe the music on its latest album, Tunnel Blanket: “doomgaze.” It’s remarkably apt — the sort of evocative portmanteau that makes music writers everywhere drool — as TWDY’s dense, slow-burning, guitar-driven tunes typically skip past melodramatic meandering and head straight for Boris-like levels of sonic density. We asked the band’s guitarist, Chris King, to make us a playlist, and the doom-gazer dropped this Shining Void on us.

Shining Void Mix
by This Will Destroy You

“Then came human beings. They wanted to cling but had nothing to cling to.”

1. Colleen: “This Place in Time”

Beautiful 18th Century funeral parlour music.

Ólöf Arnalds

Pop Addict: Ólöf Arnalds’ Innundir Skinni

Every Thursday, Pop Addict presents infectious tunes from contemporary musicians across indie rock, pop, folk, electronica, and more.

Ólöf Arnalds

Ólöf Arnalds: Innundir Skinni (One Little Indian, 9/14/10)

Ólöf Arnalds: “Surrender”
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Icelandic singer and multi-instrumentalist Ólöf Arnalds has crafted an intimate and lovely sophomore record, Innundir Skinni, released on the London-based label One Little Indian. Arnalds, a touring member of Múm since 2003, follows up Við og Við – voted Iceland’s Record of the Year in 2007 – with nine songs produced by Sigur Rós keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson.

Classically trained on the violin and viola, and self-taught on the guitar and charango, Arnalds enlists the help of fellow Icelandic musicians Skúli Sverrisson, Davið Þór Jónsson, and Björk as well as Secret Chiefs 3 contributor Shahzad Ismaily.

Innundir Skinni – “Under the Skin” in English – is largely an album of balance, of the ebb and flow between quiet moments and orchestral bursts. It’s a calm yet affecting album, due in large part to Arnalds’ vocal charm. For the many instruments she plays, her most enchanting tool is her voice — at times folksy and melodic, at others high-pitched and lilting – drawing comparisons to Kate Bush and, in rare moments, Joanna Newsom. Yet her style, acutely Nordic, is distinctly her own.