Future Islands
As Long As You Are
(4AD)
★★★★

HAVING hit the big time with their performance of Seasons (Waiting on You) on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2014, North Carolina’s Future Islands are back with their sixth album.

The set isn’t a huge leap forward, which is fine when the songs are this good. 

Samuel T Herring is still one of the most compelling and idiosyncratic frontmen out there, his soaring vocals making each chorus arena-ready.

Musically the band stick with their euphoric brand of synth-pop, stacking the best songs at the top of the record. 

Opener Glada finds Herring ruminating over Echo and the Bunnymen-sized waves of synths, while upbeat single For Sure is a huge anthem to rank alongside their best work.

Cathartic, life-affirming and deeply romantic, As Long As You Are reveals a group at the top of their game.

Laura Veirs
My Echo
(Bella Union)
★★★★

THE new record from Portland-based singer-songwriter Laura Veirs — her 11th solo album — deals with some weighty issues. 

Having recently got divorced from her long-time producer Tucker Martine, Veirs says many of the songs are about “disintegration and death … advancing age, the confines of domesticity, our oppressive government and the threat of the apocalypse.”

In contrast to these dark themes, the gentle folk music she has created has a calming beauty, her vocals exhibiting a real clarity and reassurance.

The touching piano ballad End Times imagines a close connection at the end of the world, while Burn Too Bright is a rocking tribute to the musician Richard Swift, who died in 2018. 

Martine is still in the producer’s chair and, like in 2018’s brilliant The Lookout, she is assisted by Karl Blau and Jim James.

Hymns for indie music fans.

Dominik Wania
Lonely Shadows
(ECM)
★★★★

PROBABLY best known for his work in the Maciej Obara Quartet, Lonely Shadows marks Polish pianist Dominik Wania’s solo debut with ECM.

Recorded at the Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano, Switzerland, the music is entirely improvised, bringing to mind the work of Wania’s idol and ECM giant, Keith Jarrett.

Accordingly, there are many terrific melodic flourishes on the album, mixed with a couple of discordant, knotty tracks like Subjective Objectivity and Indifferent Attitude.

Overall the mood is contemplative, especially on the wonderful title track, the piano played in such a way to make it sound like the warm synths of the ’70s. 

AG76, a tribute to the Polish painter Zdzislaw Beksinski, finds Wania using the escapement lever of the piano to create a slow moving, moodily delicate piece.

A rich work of impressive originality and emotional depth.