Alcoholic Faith Mission - 421 Wythe Avenue (2009) (AWESOME !!!)

Genre : Electronica, Electrocoustic, Folk, Pop, Ambient, Experimental, Post-rock, Denmark
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Tracklist

01 Theme From Soft Ice Cream Products
02 Gently
03 Nut In Your Eye
04 We All Have Your Shortcomings
05 Escapism
06 Guilty Scared Eyes
07 Painting Animals In Watercolors
08 Someone Else
09 Did You Eat
10 Sweet Evelyn
11 Time

Denmark has established itself as a sanctuary for offbeat pop musicians. I was easily won over by Slaraffenland's "Private cinema" and Larsen & Furious Jane's "Zen sucker", to name just a few, and it is within this eccentric, peripheral vein of pop music that Alcoholic Faith Mission exist. On "Gently", which begins (and continues on as) a lavish, beautifully layered composition, a female vocalist delicately sings: "Just 'cause I'm a whore, you know it doesn't mean I don't feel it when you fuck me." This strange juxtaposition of the beautiful and the base continues on in the next track, "Nut in your eye", a track that by name alone should be on a throwaway hip-hop album, but in substance falls not too far from the realm of Broken Social Scene. "421 Wythe Avenue", while moving away from the resplendent/sexual parallelisms, continues on musically in much the same way as the opening tracks -- ethereally layered electronic elements and vocals, solid acoustic and electric guitar work, all tethered to shifting centers and uncertain musical landscapes. There is a tragic beauty here, one that blends the emotional registers of Mixtapes & Cellmates and Moonbabies, yet remains quite distinctively an original construct, and it is this ingenuity that sets Alcoholic Faith Mission apart from many of their contemporaries.