>>PREVIEW
ISLANDS
Wednesday, November 1
Underground
Nick Diamonds first appeared under the guise of The Unicorns, a young, brash and bratty trio that seemed set to rewrite the indie-rock rulebooks with their debut album Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone. One EP later and The Unicorns were gone, their acrimonious split splattered over Pitchfork’s front pages.
Quicker than one would expect, Diamonds re-appeared (alongside fellow ex-Unicorn J’aime Tambeur) as Islands, subtly leaking the tunes "Abominable Snow" and "Flesh" to online blogs, hiding behind the slogan "Islands are Forever." Their debut album Return to the Sea emerged earlier this year, in direct opposition to the Unicorns patented sound (admittedly echoed closely on both "Snow" and "Flesh"), closer in spirit to Paul Simon’s Graceland period than Pavement’s whacked-out Wowee Zowee daze. More a grower than a shower, Return to the Sea reveals its secrets slowly. The beautiful "Swans (Life After Death)" opens the proceedings, unfurling through an epic series of musical movements and motifs built upon hopping guitar. "Rough Gem" carries with it the keyboard riff of the year, while the spectre of Paul Simon is lovingly embraced throughout. Dare one find cause to proclaim the album "mature," however, Diamonds and Tambeur toss in the cheeky "Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby" and a cameo from their short-lived hip hop side-project Th’ Corn Gangg "Where There’s a Will There’s a Whalebone." As an artistic statement of intent, Return to the Sea is the type of record other bands take years to pull off. In Islands’ case, it’s effortless.
Given how The Unicorns crumbled, Diamonds’s work ethic is one to be reckoned with – not to mention his return to music, one to be embraced.
"I was definitely disillusioned by rock music," he admits. "At first, I wanted to concentrate on making hip hop beats.
That yielded a dormant, but not extinct project entitled Th’ Corn Gangg that made a couple of beats and remixes, most infamously for Beck’s Guerolito remix album.
"I’m slowly coming around to making rock n’ roll, albeit in a creative manner," he says. "Islands feels like a slow-building, hard-working project development. We’re slowly getting the word out about the band in a genuine and sincere way."
As for The Unicorns, Diamonds has no use for reliving past glories.
"I have no desire to play Unicorns songs in any incarnation," he says, "and definitely not within the context of this band. Aside from a superficial one, there is no relationship between that band and Islands. I find questions about The Unicorns yield very uninspiring answers."
That Islands’ debut album Return to the Sea features icebergs on its cover is only partially fitting (given that 90 per cent of an actual iceberg is underwater, undiscovered, far bigger and inspiring than you’d initially suspected).
Since J’aime’s departure (that itself came as a recent surprise, the touring life is not the one for him), Islands has appeared even stronger, in a strange way capable of even more than what Return to the Sea already proclaims. In parting, Diamonds reconsiders his band’s defiant slogan.
"If I could, I’d rename it "Islands is Forever," which I guess means that I feel even more of a connection to the band than before."
Icebergs eventually melt. Islands, for the most part, stay put right where they are. |
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