Islands

Islands: And That's Why Dolphins Lost Their Legs [CD]

"What Occurs", is Islands' 10th album. It was recorded, mixed and mastered entirely on Vancouver Island, the birthplace of Islands' songwriter Nick Thorburn and his first record made on the island. The album functions like a collection of short stories, each song telling a different tale: A man steals a billionaire's painting, ("David Geffen's Jackson Pollock"), a woman is terrified of intimacy but great at dancing ("Arachnophobia"), and a lovelorn loser does everything wrong ("Drown A Fish").

Islands: Return To Sea (10th Anniversary) [CD]

Taste, Islands' 6th record, is a muscular, crystalline affair, with the majority of the music electronic, buoyed by drum machines, programming and arpeggiated vintage synths. The songs still flirt with Islands' bread and butter; evergreens such as ennui, remorse, and a general disenchantment with the modern world hover over the tracks, with lines like "we got so thrown, we felt lost at home" and "steal a little moment, lose it like you own it", to hammer home the point. The songs cut a wide swath, however, and also go in directions that Islands has never tackled, including police brutality and white male privilege (!).

Should I Remain Here, at Sea?, Islands' 7th, is, in many ways, a spiritual sequel to the debut album, 2006's Return to the Sea; a natural, raw record, stripped down to it's essentials, performed live off the floor. Reflecting on the decade that has elapsed, SIRHAS kicks off with a darkly funny tartness, tackling religion, race, addiction, and murderous fantasies, but by midpoint, the songs give way to a resigned and doleful melancholia, tackling heartache, numb disillusionment and emotional disorientation through the guise of stupid parrots, the Internet, sea turtles and perhaps the loneliest maritimer to ever sail the seas. It was recorded as spontaneously as could be, with some of the songs captured live in one take, vocals and all.

Islands: Islomania [CD]

Islands: Ski Mask [CD]