aaamusic | On 17, Jan 2011

Islet are a sonic trip, it’s great to listen to them while you’re travelling because every tune has got different sounds like a landscape changing outside your window.

They released two EP, Celebrate this place and Wimmy, the first has got a curious tracklist because nearly every song has a name of woman as title and it’s characterised  by a huge variety of sounds, in fact every tune is made of more than one song, like a suite. The second is more cryptic, with a sort of “religious” sound, like a ritual, it  reminds me the magnificent sound of These New Puritans (as you can hear in Powys).

I love how they balance guitars and drums on the right and left channels while the voice sounds exactly in the middle joining different pieces. Their music has got a strong personality and they will be definitely talked about in 2011.

Wimmy includes tribal songs with reggae and samba moments using choirs and vocals that make them darker, interspersed with psychedelic sonorities that taste of acid and India.

Horses and dogs is a reggae broken up by dreaming moments with clean guitars and distorted vocals in falsetto.

Dust of ages is purely lyrical while Living in Manila is a tribal song with Caribbean sounds made dirty by rock guitars interrupted by dreaming choirs.

Celebrate this place include also catchy moments like in We shall visit, but keeping their dark- tribal mark, inserting also noises like microphone whistles or dissonant feedback from their amplifiers. Iris gives space to distorted synths and virtuous guitar licks while One of these worlds is more psychedelic with its organs and guitars that sound like sitars.

Author: Roberta Capuano