S.A. Andrée – There’s a Fault

I got this cd in the mail today. It’s origins are almost as mysterious as the North Pole must have been to Swedish national hero/explorer S.A. Andrée (great wiki article btw), who perished in a ballooning attempt to chart the region in the late 1800s.

No cheat sheets or liner notes were delivered, which is ok usually thanks to the godly internets, but there is next to nothing written up on these guys, save for a very mention on the Lex Records Youtube page, the same guys who are backing MF Doom’s latest work. After giving it a listen, I understand that these guys are minimalist noise/shoe-gazer indie band but who may have had a background in hiphop, but seriously, someone needs to work on promoting them a bit. All that is available online is a mysterious splash page here.

Anyway, it’s pretty good stuff. Moody blips, bleeps and bloops with some nice filters thrown in. The only aspect that throws me off a bit are the vocals which are not always the strongest aspect of the album, but do prevail for the most part. According to The Stranger, “you will like this album if you like Alias, Dash, or Fog” but I beg to differ. There is nary a rap, a rhyme or snare on ‘There’s a Fault’. Mostly apparent are 80s synth undertones, with references to The Cure and even NIN if you can let your imagination run wild in that direction. There is definitely a chilly vibe across the album. In fact, yes, this is definitely an album that you can file under Cold Wave.

Keeping with the Arctic explorer theme, track titles all reference things in the historical S.A. Andrée’s life. Like, track 2 is named From Svalbard, the remote Russian Arctic archipelago where the balloon crashed, track 3 is named after the fated balloon, the Örnen (eagle), track 5 is Profondeur 2M 10, etc etc, easy to see the point. I’m guessing the producers of the album are Swedish or have some kind of reverence/fascination for the Swedes or else they would not have named their band so.

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