NEXT STOP: HORIZON We Know CD for fans of Kurt Weill David Lynch Uniqueness!

Description: Next Stop: Horizon is Pär Hagström and Jenny Roos from Gothenburg, Sweden. Their music is so special that it's difficult to explain their sound. Perhaps, Kurt Weill-esque, achingly unique, anarchic and melodramatic music of bizarre beauty, sounding archaic and totally contemporary at the same time. The band attempts an explanation: "We spent the whole winter at our own recording studio in Gothenburg, recording the Next Stop: Horizon debut album. We wanted to try out a few things that we had thought of for quite a while. We wanted to find new sounds. And old sounds. We wanted to create soundly images of who we were that specific winter. What we dreamed about. What we cared for. How we felt. Who we wanted to be. It's all there, on the album. We recorded all the melodies we could hear in our heads and invited the finest musicians and friends we could think of to add their own feel to it, and tiny fragments of their minds. On top of that, we put a certain amount of snow and rain and wind, along with pictures of warmer places which we dreamed about. And echoes from lands so far away that no one can go there. It turned out to sound like music. Our music." review When Pär and Jenny, aka Next Stop Horizon, say they know exactly where they’re going, I’m not entirely sure that I believe them, but I definitely want to go with them. This is a fairy-tale of an album, albeit a fairy-tale set in 1930’s Berlin and narrated by David Lynch. Weill-esque cabaret, monsters in cupboards, the vague menace of toy-box melodies, and brooding soundscapes come together to shape a piece of menace and foreboding, interspersed with moments of high camp. Opening track 'Iron Train' is reminiscent of Portishead’s 'Glory Box' with heavy overtones of Laurel Near/Peter Ivers’ 'In Heaven' from the Eraserhead soundtrack. Driven by a music-box motif, the track takes on layers of uneasy instrumentation, with an insouciant clarinet line coming and going over a solid yet subtle percussion track. “There’s a crack in the face of the world,” announces 'Wild Escape' ominously over a slap bass and drum background. “Something’s reaching out for me,” the lyric continues as the air of doom intensifies, before the relative safety of the high-kicking middle eight. The track is held together by a tight rhythm line, yet still threatens to come apart in the most exciting and terrifying way as it approaches its climax. 'Mysterious Grace' takes the cabaret element and pushes it to it extreme. A forceful melody, an empowered vocal and terrific brass backing while 'One of Those Nights' is a simple, guitar and voice confessional – it would not sound out of place on Vic Chesnutt’s 'West of Rome' such is its elegiac feel. There’s a duality at work in many of the pieces; that childhood sense of inquiry mixed with dread; the beauty of the forest contrasted with the darkness of its depths. The tracks are beautifully crafted, but at times aching with melancholy or drenched in the cold perspiration of a child lost in the woods. 'Ship in a Bottle', for instance, is almost unbearably beautiful. This is an album of surprises – even the third time through, I was finding twists and turns that I hadn’t previously noticed –and one that I would recommend without reservation. Pär and Jenny sign their press release thus: "We don’t have a clue what our next album will sound like." Now, that I do believe.

Price: 6.99 USD

Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

End Time: 2024-09-18T16:07:36.000Z

Shipping Cost: 5.25 USD