Seabear, We Built A Fire
Featured Album
Orchestrated, agreeably quirky pagan folk, with room for occasional samples
Reykjavik's Seabear are a beguiling septet whose leader Sindri Már Sigfusson has the kind of pleasantly soporific voice that paid considerable dividends for José Gonsález. He and his bandmates make orchestrated, agreeably quirky music that melds elements of Iceland's pagan-folk past with a more contemporary indie sound that makes room for the occasional sample. The results should resonate nicely with fans of Sufjan Stevens and/or Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.
We Built A Fire is the outfit’s follow-up to 2007's Ghost That Carried Us Away. Once again, Sigfusson packs his songs with characters seemingly derived from some obscure folklore: the "Lion Face Boy" of the opening track and the newlyweds who carve their names on the bride's gnashers during "Wooden Teeth" make for a winningly offbeat cast.
Like so many other Icelandic acts before them — Sigur Rós; Múm; Björk — Seabear have a superb command of atmospherics. The twist, though, is Sigfusson's more traditional approach to songwriting — there are some surprisingly sturdy, accessible pop songs lying beneath the haze. “Cold Summer" skews acoustic and lovely, with treated piano, soft-focus brass and a winning undercurrent of chilly Icelandic melancholy, but the fabulous "Softship" — imagine a shoegazing Stereolab — point to a quizzical, questing sensibility that takes them out of the comfy confines of indie-folk.
