...and the Slow Songs About the Dead Calm in your Arms

Minimalistic instrumentation and a luminescent atmospheres define And the Slow Songs About the Dead Calm in Your Arms, the follow-up to debut album Blue, from the Icelandic duo Pornopop. Even the pair's track titles — "Nicotine and the Backward Lounge," "Wired to the Cold Metallic Scene," "Sleep" — are evocative, their music belying both the pornographic and pop of their moniker. Many of the numbers within have an almost lullaby-like quality, drifting languorously on a bed of gentle guitars and blanketed by cottony synths, rocked by soft rhythms. "Death Tape," however has a more shadowed feel, "Little Kafka" a more abrupt rhythm, while "Stop" a more experimental edge. Counterpointing the song's wonderfully somnolent atmospheres and cozy musical currents are the almost icily cool vocals, floating almost disembodied across the backings, adding an arctic breeze to the set. An album to lose oneself in, to ponder over, and let haunt one's dreams.