Sin Fang Bous

Like a story so exciting and rich with detail you must dive into the middle, repeat and stutter your way through it, Clangour is a sparking firework of an album. Having begun the now six-piece outfit Seabear as a solo project, Reykjavik native Sindri Mar Sigfusson breathes life into this new one-man band. And Sin Fang Bous plays not Panda Bear to their Animal Collective but Animal Collective to their Panda Bear and Sebastian. "Advent in Ives Garden" is a malfunctioning game of Donkey Kong played by a speed-frazzled Simon and Garfunkel. A slightly less tweaked version of those harmonies appears on "Clangour and Flutes," full of toy instruments and fairytale violence. Sigfusson seems to innately understand that fucking up a simple folky banjo line with a 4/4 dance beat and strident glockenspiel can yield good cheer. In that way Clangour is not unlike the breakthrough that came from Caribou's post-space age embellishments on Andorra. If pop music is determined to keep revisiting the past, this is the time machine I want to ride in.