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Molek FMDig of this Week: Islands
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Islands is one Izelan Shahier; an individual, not a band as the plural moniker would imply. Recent track ‘October’ would hint at ironic synths – the kind of ‘80s noodle-y synthesisers one would find emulated so often in modern music, or by leftfield comedians the likes of Tim & Eric. But Izelan is deeper than that, once his reverb-drenched voice seeps into the instrumental, all notions of irony is left behind; the melancholy is real. Islands is a mood-maker. Then, a closer inspection of his oeuvre would reveal a sound that is nearer to the world of offbeat bedroom singer-songwriters à la lurkgurl; though here a seeming confluence of outlier lo-fi, vocals bathed in reverbs, gorgeous vaporwave, and genuine appreciation for ’80 synths. While ‘eleven’ is exemplary of the gorgeous atmospherics he can achieve purely through electronics, ‘Flower’ makes a case for Islands as a singer-songwriter, which ‘Urban Pneumonia’ – with its piercing synths and woeful singing – then proves itself to be an ascension of all these disparate influences.