By Bill Murphy | Thu, 21 Jul 2011
This Danish quartet
mines a lot of the
quirky synth-pop
moves that have
become de rigueur for
Scandinavian artists—
minimalist beats, coldly
Kraftwerkian effects,
and elasticized vocals—
but they do it with a
compositional flair that
recalls Brit trance and
trip-hop mainstays like
Massive Attack, Way
Out West, and Zero 7.
This isn’t to say that
Konkylie (literally,
“conch shell”) sounds
unoriginal; the jittery
textures of “Parix” and
the sci-fi tribal pulse of
“Jets,” for starters, help
bend Nikolaj Manuel
Vonsild’s already
otherworldly voice into
even more unusual and
alien shapes.