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Track Listings
| 1. Swans (Life After Death) |
| 2. Humans |
| 3. Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby |
| 4. Rough Gem |
| 5. Tsuxiit |
| 6. Where There's a Will There's a Whalebone |
| 7. Jogging Gorgeous Summer |
| 8. Volcanoes |
| 9. If |
| 10. Ones |
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Return To The Sea marks the debut of new Rough Trade signings Islands, an outfit formed from the ashes of hotly-tipped Montreal outfit The Unicorns, who disintegrated just as their excellent LP Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? won them a cult global audience. Whittled down to the core duo of Nick Diamonds and Jaime Tambeu, here Islands sire a deft, skittering breed of indie-pop that flips from eerie electronic pop to baroque European traditionals to Calypso-tinted orchestral symphonies in the blink of an eye. Sound-wise, it’s a slightly cleaner, more focused sound than The Unicorns, but the opening ‘Swans’, which clocks in just shy of the ten minute mark, confirms their ambitions are still as flighty as ever – a cantering mini-epic that finds the pair chorusing "I woke up thirsty/The day I died!" over swells of piano. One sure point of reference is their countrymen The Arcade Fire, who Islands recall somewhat on the fulsome "Rough Gem". But as the lunatic hip-hop showdown of "Where There’s A Will There’s a Whale", Islands place far less stock on dramatic grandiosity, and everything on letting their wild imaginations run riot.--Louis Pattison
From the Label
Islands sprouted out of the kindred x-ray vision of Nick Diamonds and J'aime Tambeur, two rag-tag youths from the weird side of the tracks. Previously, they'd worked together in sludge-crust band ‘The Unicorns’. This time they'd be exploring a music best catalogued as ‘other’, in what seems a tribute to the timeless sound of great pop music. The album combines rhythms and sounds of cultures in the southern and eastern hemispheres, as well as a dash of ‘rap’. ‘Return to the Sea’ was recorded in the sweaty month of July while Islands was still merely couple of lonely icebergs, not yet an archipelago. So local friends, including Richard Reed Parry, Regine Chassagne, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld, Dan Boeckner, Spencer Krug, and l'il Mikey Feurstack lent their valiant efforts to the recording process.
With the album finished, Nick and J'aime set out on a search for the most exciting musicians in existence to create Islands as you see them live today. On their travels, they encountered Patrice Agbokou, the Togo born bass player with the gift of "finger magic". Patrice's impressive resume, which included a short stint as Prince's bass player at age of 12, helped clinch the deal.
Next to join were the magnificent Chow brothers, Alex and Sebastian, known to many as the 1993 and 1994 "World Super-NES-Fest" champions. Between the two of them, they play every instrument ever created, but are known to be particularly deadly on "Mario Paint Music Maker", which they play quite competently in the band.
Islands wouldn't be complete without their resident heartbreaker Patrick Gregoire, breathing new life into the album via his sexy bass clarinet (often foolishly mistaken for a saxophone), sometimes used as a stick with which to shake girls off. The group also boasts the genetically musical and mustachioed James R. Guthrie, (grandson to Woody and nephew to Arlo), and two of LA's finest rappers Subtitle (Giovanni Marks) and Busdriver (Regan Farquhar). Other guests sometimes peek out from corners.
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