(2019) Kristin Anna - I Must Be the Devil

Review: Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir has been a quiet fixture in Icelandic experimental pop for more than two decades. An Aaron and Bryce Dessner collaborator and a former member of múm, she specializes in wispy, orchestral folk that seems to be dissipating even as it reaches your ears. 14 years ago, Kristín began recording her own album, I Must Be the Devil, largely composed of piano and vocals. The result is gentle, lovely, and meandering to a fault. Valtýsdóttir has a striking voice, both childlike and elvish. It sounds distractingly similar to Joanna Newsom or early Kate Bush, but her similarities to these two orchestral pop titans pretty much stop and start right there. While Valtýsdóttir clearly admires their renfaire aesthetics and baroque, winding song structures, I Must Be the Devil is a far more subdued effort than, say, Ys or The Kick Inside. It is also, unfortunately, much less interesting. Take early single “Forever Love,” a thorny piano ballad. The piano meanders in and out, and Valtýsdóttir’s vocals take on an almost church-choir quality. Her lyrics are less important to the song than the pure sound of her voice, but focus on them and you nevertheless find yourself contemplating a slightly cringy forest-sex scenario: “In a frenzy/Saying what the fuck/The forest shields/That what other think/Our bodies naked/Are moving to the deep beat,” Valtýsdóttir sings. On “Heartly Matters,”Valtýsdóttir coos: “I do love/The way he sang/and I do love/The way we sounded. Tracklist: 01 - The Ocean Wave Rocks My Knee Shells 02 - Forever Love 03 - Heartly Matters 04 - Star, Child 05 - Clay and Vapour 06 - Like the Others 07 - In the Air 08 - Place of You 09 - Girl

Summary: Country: Iceland Genre: indie-folk, indie-pop