We know only one value, and that is more. Further, faster, heavier than last time. More value, more profit, inexorably gunning the engine to the limit. And so the engine burns out, and we are thrown into the rough. From whence a band like Islet emerge, fresh, experimental, unencumbered by baggage, willing to savour the slow growth and meld of the new – their sonic tendrils wrapping, enveloping us in an otherworldly glow, widening our narrowed arteries with enriched blood. Their album Illuminated People sounds out the grimy birth of post-rock’s pups, and seems to sum up, for us, the resonance of dead end Britain. The cover art depicts a freeze frame of ‘hands in the air’, and it seems to pick out the high point of the bubble as the visual lament for all that has passed.

A broken down drum kit, parts of synths, fragments of guitar styles, singers that refuse to sing, schizo genre collapsing jump cuts: this is how to make a new language; this is how to reconnect finally. It has this same approach of a Slits or Pop Group, though sounds like neither – it’s the freshness. The dynamics are explosive, but this ain’t only a screamo punch-up (the juvenile part of their sound that will fall by the wayside we are sure). It can be gentle like old, worn, beloved Harmonia, can be keening like the breeze caught in a keyhole. It can be fired with righteous fury, invoked on the wonderfully titled A Warrior Who Longs To Grow Herbs. Entwined Pines slowly fades from the buzz of fluorescent tubes, through blissed-out billowing clouds into insistent down strokes, a collapsed collage of styles. Like an incredible tracking shot, it all feels subtle, accomplished, and jaw-droppingly confident.

Islet are a freewheeling live act, have a burning desire to improve themselves, and for a traditional band set up, have more in common with the likes of Burial in the way they piece their sound together. This scrawled plan, this ambitious pitch of an album, has set our minds on fire. 2012 starts here.

-Julian Tardo-