Future Islands

With its fusing of the best of analog and early digital synth-based music with a modern aesthetic, Baltimore's Future Islands might seem like a contemporary version of new wave to an uninformed listener. Really, though, the act is a closer musical cousin to Architecture and Mortality and Dazzle Ships-era Orchestral...

By Tom Murphy

September 11, 2008

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With its fusing of the best of analog and early digital synth-based music with a modern aesthetic, Baltimore's Future Islands might seem like a contemporary version of new wave to an uninformed listener. Really, though, the act is a closer musical cousin to Architecture and Mortality and Dazzle Ships-era Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, whose own sound was rooted in post-punk. Strong, fluid, atmospheric bass lines carry the songs along like boats at sea, boldly charting promising new territory in a hitherto undiscovered tropical archipelago of the imagination. There's also a curiously romantic undercurrent to the music that manifests itself in vocals that implore and passionately declare heartfelt emotions — perhaps as a reminder that through the international language of music, no one is truly alone.

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Tom Murphy is a writer, visual artist and musician from Aurora, Colorado. He was a prolific music writer for Westword and a documenter of the Denver music scene.

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