Floom Sounds Four

Listen to the Floom Sounds Spotify playlist here! We'll update it with every new instalment.

Green Grass Of Tunnel - Múm

An Icelandic band making (ugh, worst genre name) post-rock that isn’t Sigur Ros… It must be Múm. The Mooms take things in a slightly less epic-crescendo-tailor-made-for-extended-movie-soundtracks, focusing on much more twee instrumentation and the glitchy laptop beats that were all the rage in Indie bands operating around the first half of the nineties.

I’ll be honest, their whimsy is a little difficult to stomach in larger doses, but this single from their second album is a perfect example of all their elements coming together in just the right way: organ, accordion and strings all dance gently around a pretty melody. Also on hand is vocalist Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir who puts forth lyrics like, “Behind these two hills here, fall asleep And when I float in green grass of tunnel, It flows back” - as suitably hushed and broken as the naive beats backing the song up.

Thru The Tulips - J Rocc

Foggy beats and a sample from Brazilian noodler Egberto Gismonti from the Stones Throw mainstay, best known as Madlib’s tour DJ and for a couple of excellent mixtapes over the years. This track is from one of his slightly more difficult to pin down releases, Some Cold Rock Stuf, and it’s always slightly weird hearing two minute sections of a larger work in isolation like this…

Poa Alpina - Biosphere

Substrata by Biosphere is generally regarded as one of the finest ambient records ever recorded. It’s hard to argue with: richly evocative passages comprised of synth swells, found sounds and even occasional vocal snippets from Twin Peaks wash over the listener. The haunting, slow build of Poa Alpina, which takes its name from the plant more commonly known as Alpine Meadow Grass, is one of the standout tracks on the album.

Roses - Abra

This is a bit of a weird one, but partly because it actually isn’t that weird at all - a more or less straight up, poppy R&B cut from an artist formerly known as ‘the darkwave duchess’. It was also released by Atlanta-based Awful Records, who carved out a niche as one of the more oddball rap outfits in a city filled to the with oddball rap outfits (think Young Thug, iLoveMakonnen, even guys like Future and Gucci Mane are completely out there in a lot of ways beyond their plain old incredible skills…).

A bouncy bass-line and the whippy tick of a drum machine underlie slightly zoned out vocals that seem to be the norm in so much contemporary RnB (is it supposed to be amoral or just plain old apathetic?). Nevertheless there’s a deliciously wicked sense of melodrama at play here as Abra sings: “You taste best when you’re in full bloom, you can’t be killed if you’re ripped from the roots, I’m young and I’ll waste you away…”

Daisychain - Richard Buckner

One of the finest and most underrated alt-country artists of modern times is Richard Buckner. His voice somehow manages to be gritty and gentle all at once, as he weaves poetic lyrics across a bed of distinguished guitar playing and the odd burst of accordion, pedal steel and the like…

Daisychain is taken from his 1999 debut album, Bloomed. It’s a rattling three minutes that kicks off with one of the finest kiss-offs to grace the world of outlaw music: “Now don’t you feel bad that I forgot your name, I keep your face on a daisychain…”