[indie-folk, indie-pop] (2019) Kristin Anna - I Must Be the Devil [FLAC,Tracks] [DarkAngie]

(2019) Kristin Anna - I Must Be the Devil

Review:
Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir has been a quiet fixture in Icelandic experimental pop for more than two decades. An Aaron and Bryce Dessner collaborator and a former member of múm, she specializes in wispy, orchestral folk that seems to be dissipating even as it reaches your ears. 14 years ago, Kristín began recording her own album, I Must Be the Devil, largely composed of piano and vocals. The result is gentle, lovely, and meandering to a fault. Valtýsdóttir has a striking voice, both childlike and elvish. It sounds distractingly similar to Joanna Newsom or early Kate Bush, but her similarities to these two orchestral pop titans pretty much stop and start right there. While Valtýsdóttir clearly admires their renfaire aesthetics and baroque, winding song structures, I Must Be the Devil is a far more subdued effort than, say, Ys or The Kick Inside. It is also, unfortunately, much less interesting. Take early single “Forever Love,” a thorny piano ballad. The piano meanders in and out, and Valtýsdóttir’s vocals take on an almost church-choir quality. Her lyrics are less important to the song than the pure sound of her voice, but focus on them and you nevertheless find yourself contemplating a slightly cringy forest-sex scenario: “In a frenzy/Saying what the fuck/The forest shields/That what other think/Our bodies naked/Are moving to the deep beat,” Valtýsdóttir sings. On “Heartly Matters,”Valtýsdóttir coos: “I do love/The way he sang/and I do love/The way we sounded.” There’s not much to hold onto here, and the music is weightless both in aura and content. There are a few fully realized moments. “Star, Child” simmers in soft focus with the aid of velvety string flourishes. The album closer “Girl” is the record’s strongest offering. It gleams with compositional possibilities: the nine-minute song slowly creeps up on its listener, a vast expanse dotted with strange futuristic sounds, like a field full of AI-powered fireflies. The pacing is unhurried; Valtýsdóttir takes plenty of time to get to the point, and for the most part, it is pleasant enough to be along for the ride. You could say that this sentiment carries over to the rest of the album, which proves to be truly pretty, but doesn’t demand much attention.

Tracklist:
01 - The Ocean Wave Rocks My Knee Shells
02 - Forever Love
03 - Heartly Matters
04 - Star, Child
05 - Clay and Vapour
06 - Like the Others
07 - In the Air
08 - Place of You
09 - Girl

Summary:
Country: Iceland
Genre: indie-folk, indie-pop


Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~ 600-780 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits