Husky Rescue - Ghost Is Not Real (Catskills)
3/5
By: Christiana Spens
Hailing from Finland, Husky Rescue are a strange band of blonde people who look like the elves in Lord of the Rings and appear to travel with an ethereal mist surrounding them and sweeping them along their cloudy paths, new album in hand. Something in their music reminds me of that short film Kate Moss did for Agent Provocateur, where she drifts around a haunted house in trippy dreams and there's a lot of misty light and elusive shadows everywhere.
However where Kate's performance was erotic, Husky Rescue (as you would expect) is eerily strange. It's part of that Arctic tradition from which Bjork drifted into sight and apparently where strange things go on in lands where there is no daylight in winter, just reflections of moon on snow. It is also quite like the Parisian duo Air, though less chic and urbane. Instead there is an ethereal, otherworldly and innocent quality that is entrancing and peaceful, almost like watching the sun rise after an awaken night, with the glimmer of intoxication but breath of a new day, as the high melts but the hangover is yet to threaten any peace of mind.
It isn't long before I stop thinking that Husky Rescue are just a bit too weird, (they named their US tour 'Lollapalooza' after all) and elf-like, and start feeling the fresh air of its soundscapes and melodies made of snow and detached melancholia.
I happen to have just got back from a couple weeks in Stockholm, and while Stockholm is urban and possesses a very distinctive après-ski vibe and designed uniformity, where in contrast this record expresses places far more outlandish, I can detect a certain similarity, a melody in common, something Arctic, something snow, something really quite beautiful if you listen carefully. It is a quintessential winter record, music drenched in a soft engulfing blizzard.
I know the snow in London has melted now, but if by chance it falls again then I suggest you listen to some of these tunes as you make angels in the snow-coated Primrose Hill. Alternatively, if you have flu like I now do, listen to this and sip some chilled white wine to soothe your throat, and let the lullabies send you to sleep gentle as a sleigh.
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