free music friday: the golden filter

Visions of animals as owners of magical forces, independent of nature, are increasingly common in the aesthetics of contemporary musicians. References to our natural environment surprisingly enriches what often sounds otherwise artificial and plastic. Think Alison Goldfrapp dancing with wolves in ‘Strict Machine’ and riding her white horse, or Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife and Fever Ray with her primitive paganism elevated to a fine art: uneasy, misty, a little bit weird, but still accessible and understandable.

The same source of inspiration is apparent when listening to today’s freebie, the latest single from rising electro outfit The Golden Filter (as is almost tradition in the genre, they are a duo with a female lyricist and singer, Penelope Trappes from Australia, and male synth programmer, Stephen Hindman). The imagery of birds and foxes, wild rivers and dreamy bays, mixed with whispers and ritual sounding drums can do no wrong. Penelope plays the role of ascendant mysterious diva to a tee with her silky soprano rising to celestial highs when unconsciously invoking her mysterious ‘Thunderbird’. Catchy in its thematic simplicity, the shadows made by Stephen’s dark synths and Penelope’s opaque vocals lure us into an artificial ecstasy, a dreamy, agonic dance. The Golden Filter may be playing a hard game, but the promising ‘Thunderbird’ shows that they can be big winners.

FREE MP3: The Golden Filter, ‘Thunderbird’

BONUS MP3: The Golden Filter, ‘Thunderbird’ [With Beauty Before Me I Walk Mix, via RCRD LBL]

visit The Golden Filter on Myspace

Written by: Tomas Slaninka

Tags: the golden filter

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 8:03 am and is filed under All A/V, free music friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.