Finn Bjarnson, a founding member of Late Evening Alumni, has turned his consideration to his personal story three a long time after he first thought to inform it.
For many years, Finn Bjarnson formed a few of digital music’s most enduring sounds from a place of deliberate obscurity. Now, with The Universe As Layers, his first album in over 30 years, he’s stepping ahead.
Bjarnson has been a fixture behind the scenes of the style, quietly recontextualizing its melodic sensibilities and influencing numerous artists. He co-founded Late Evening Alumni alongside Kaskade, contributed vocals to timeless fan-favorites like ‘One thing One thing’ and continued shaping the dance music icon’s sound via a long time of studio work.
In the meantime, his solo releases beneath the Finnstagram moniker earned placements on SiriusXM Chill and Kaskade’s Arkade imprint, however nothing on this scale. The Universe As Layers is framed, in Bjarnson’s personal phrases, as “a collaboration with my youthful self.” He returned to the melodies, instincts and productive naivety of a formative three-year interval early in his profession, when he was nonetheless studying to belief his personal judgment.
“Mainly I realized to belief myself,” Bjarnson mentioned. “It was a research in impromptu and spontaneity. As I’ve progressed in my profession it turned extra of a chess recreation. I really like chess, and I’m fairly good at it, however I miss the reliance on instinct fairly than mind. The idea of The Universe As Layers lends itself to this melding of timelines in a pure manner.”
That pressure is laced all through the album. The opener ‘Flicker,’ a collaboration with Kaskade, is spacey and cinematic, constructed round haunting lyrics about impermanence. ‘Praying For Time’ pushes into synth-soaked indie-dance territory whereas ‘Excessive Sufficient’ delivers a sun-dappled home observe for window-down drives via cities the place each car parking zone smells like sunscreen and chilly drinks.
The nearer, ‘Invisible Ink,’ is a surefire spotlight as effectively, tying a bow on the album with a languid downtempo observe that might soundtrack a surrealist dream sequence from Everlasting Sunshine of the Spotless Thoughts. Similar to that underrated Jim Carrey movie, what holds The Universe As Layers collectively is its conceptual premise: that timelines can coexist, and instincts aren’t misplaced a lot as buried.
You’ll be able to hearken to The Universe As Layers beneath and discover the brand new album on streaming platforms right here.
Observe Finnstagram:
Instagram: instagram.com/finnstagram
Spotify: tinyurl.com/3jpzjmuh
