Iceage, Amen Dunes

Plowing Into The Field Of Love is the third album from Copenhagen’s Iceage. It is new, bold and forceful. Channeling the rage and emotion of their tempestuous early releases into finely honed musicianship, Plowing Into The Field of Love features piano, mandolin, viola and organ atop Johan Suurballe-Wieth’s razor-sharp guitars and the lolloping, synchronized rhythm section of Jacob Tvilling Pless and Dan Kjær Nielsen. The record has a clear, uncompressed sound, and Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s desperate vocals are out front, nakedly accountable for the words.
On this album, Rønnenfelt sings of what it is like to be out in the world, dizzy with its offerings, perched on a plateau of false confidence, bliss, fantasy and delirious self-denial. The autobiographical “Forever,” for which Iceage have shared the video today, begins with a pretty repetitive motif over the words, “I always had the sense that I was split in two,” and climaxes with a sunburst of horns recalling South African spiritual jazz great Mongezi Feza: “If I could dive into the other, I’d lose myself forever.” At the other extreme, the album evokes a sort of euphoria, especially in the unexpectedly upbeat country number “The Lord’s Favorite.” Yet desperation and loss lurks behind. This is an album about seeing, learning, and rejecting things, in a cycle that repeats and builds. The reference points are wildly varied, but the sound is uniquely and darkly Iceage as the record fights with itself, in the story it tells, and the sound it makes. It is not, however, a remotely difficult record. It is the anthemic sound of a band in motion, unafraid of change, filled with curiosity, musicality and ambition.


Amen Dunes, the project of New York-based Damon McMahon, is releasing his most focused and substantial work yet with new album, Love. Unlike his previous albums, which were almost always a solo affair, Love was performed by a variety of musicians, including members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Dave Bryant and Efrim Menuck recorded the album), Colin Stetson (sax), Elias Bender Ronnenfelt of Iceage, and McMahon's longstanding collaborators, Jordi Wheeler (guitar and piano) and Parker Kindred (drums). Amen Dunes has always been rooted in traditional song and sound, but Love is his first work in which this so clearly shines through. The guiding influence of Astral Weeks, Sam Cooke, Tim Hardin, Marvin Gaye, Hector Lavoe, and the cosmic non-verbal mediations of Leon Thomas all kept vigil over the songwriting of Love, and the spirit of late 60's/early 70's spiritual jazz of Pharaoh Sanders and Alice Coltrane channeled the sound. These are elemental songs about time, love and memory, as much about the listener as they are about the writer: pure, open, and beautiful.

"Comprising just acoustic guitar, drifty piano taps, and an almost-subliminal percussive rumble, 'Lilac in Hand' is the sort of song that feels light and slight at first—that is, until you realize you're floating high up in the misty mountains 10,000 feet above sea level." - Pitchfork, April 2014