The Golden Filter
Völuspà
Rating: 2.5/5.0
Label: Brille
Historically, electronica born from discotheques and club scenes is pretty contagious music by virtue of its origin; the beats are meant for dancing and quick hooks are everything. What’s not to love, right? Of course, the modern blog-generation of music consumer has made that generalization a risky one; as bloggers pimp acts that are created for the hipster dancefloor versus reaching audiences via the old-fashioned DJ route, idiosyncratic groups like the Golden Filter become pretty commonplace even though they’re anything but failsafe hitmakers to the average clubber. The Golden Filter’s debut in particular sounds a little like Brazilian Girls and a whole lot like early Goldfrapp. Further, their shell-shocked remix of Cut Copy is their only real calling card to date. But while there’s enough originality packed into their debut to prove they can craft their own unique material, these aren’t playful dance hits that go down easy. Völuspà is a smoother, more heady form of synth-pop that will only be truly appealing to the headphone junkies that can look past its frigid exterior and recognize its more challenging virtues.
Unfortunately for the Golden Filter, Völuspà is one of the coldest, least accessible albums to arrive this year, thanks to a healthy dose of throbbing synth playing over the cavernous spaces in-between steady beats, and that curious style will make it a difficult sell. Single “Solid Gold” is here, as worthy as ever, but it’s surrounded by a few too many tracks of relentless dance rhythms and little breathing room. More importantly, the duo’s style is so crystalline and glassy (a combination of vocalist Penelope Trappes’ airy soprano and a surplus of hazy production) that Völuspà is easy to love or hate but hard to ignore.
Opener “Dance Around the Fire” makes this all pretty clear right from the beginning. The track’s sparse violin riff starts things off in time with delicate handclaps and shaking cymbals, a mystical feel suggesting this is not dance music for cruisers and club rats. Trappes’ lyrics feel more like circling chants than lines with any clear direction – another trait that will reel meditative listeners in and turn everyone else off.
Fortunately, the cold first half gives way to a much more welcoming second, beginning with “Solid Gold” and rounding out the disc’s 52 minutes with another six tracks of dreamy dance-art. “The Underdogs” relaxed tempo and gentle instrumentation feels more starry-eyed, less regimented than Völuspà’s earlier, more sterile tracks; the contrast is well-placed and makes for one of the album’s more memorable moments.
By the time “Freyja’s Ghost” and “Thunderbird” roll around, the Golden Filter seem to have found a solid groove, letting the trippy qualities of their tracks take delightful precedence. Still, that style comes at the expense of simpler pleasures and less hollow-sounding musical gestures. Clearly, creating conventional dance music is not the Golden Filter’s goal, but parts of Völuspà reach entirely too far into more challenging territory. For that reason, it’s an album that will be entirely satisfying in a studied context but often lacks the niceties that make less ambitious fare so much easier to appreciate.
by Michael Merline
