"Island" The Whitest Boy Alive

I've enjoyed Kings of Convenience since college. Their gentle, Norwegian pop even made it onto my Root Canal Mix CD (no worries about bad associations, though, I was sufficiently doped up and the tunes piping through my headphones only made things more relaxing). I mention Kings of Convenience because the lanky, bespectacled, red-headed half of that duo, Erlend Øye, has since moved on to help form the band, The Whitest Boy Alive. The two bands share a good deal in the tone of their music, if not so much in the form or sound. TWBA has a similar gentleness, but it's been tempered in the late night of a hot club. While the tunes on KoC's, "Quiet is the New Loud" and subsquent disc, "Riot on an Empty Street" stood true to the album titles on which they rested, TWBA's "Rules" has a more downtempo, chillout vibe that hints more at a slightly different mood. If Kings of Convenience are a warm, sun-filled living room on a cold January afternoon, The Whitest Boy Alive are a grey afternoon staring out the window of a coffeeshop.

It's that chill afternoon, with the matte white skies and no shadows, that struck me first. There are fat flakes of snow drifting down, clumping in the cracks and crevices, looking as cold as you think they are. You sip your cup of light roast or tea, you stare into the distance. Across the street a woman tucks her chin into the neckline of her jacket, a turtle in tan wool. There aren't many cars in this part of town, it's quiet and your headphones are as warm as the sidewalk is cold. The world may be flattened by the homogenous light, but the songs are rich and textured, organs and bass guitar, a soundtrack to a cold day in a coffeeshop, watching the cold and the snow and the featureless sky, drinking your light roast or tea, staring into the distance.

"Island" The Whitest Boy Alive

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