Over the last few years there has been a lot of online discussion about music listening habits. We live in a time with an embarrassment of musical riches – not only have streaming services given us instant (and cheap) access to an insanely massive library of songs, something teenage me couldn’t have even dreamed of in the 1980s, but also Bandcamp and Soundcloud and whatever new, hot, and trendy sites my old ass hasn’t heard of, have made it easy for anyone to get their music out into the world. If there’s truly a “problem” with music today it’s that we have so much choice that sometimes you want to throw up your hands and just go play the stuff you already like because, well, it’s just easier. Given too many options we’ll often just revert to what we know.
Actual scientific research shows that the amount of time we spend listening to music decreases as we leave our 20s (though it does appear to increase again in our 60s). And analyses of Spotify listener data reveals that as we age we listen to music that is less and less popular, strongly implying that we listen to less new music. I suspect this has always been true, but it’s accelerating due to the sheer amount of music now at our fingertips.
This should come as a surprise to no one. It was certainly true of me. By my mid-20s my musical tastes were fairly locked in, and any “new” music I bought was probably put out by a band or artist I already knew and liked. And I probably would have continued on that way if it wasn’t for a sort of spontaneous decision to go to Iceland Airwaves in 2009, where I found myself in the midst of five days of music covering a wide range of genres, with not a single artist I’d ever heard of. And at the end of that journey was Gusgus, closing out the festival at a club called NASA.
It might be a bit of a reach to credit Gusgus with re-opening my ears to new music, but they certainly played their part. I became and evangelist for their album 24/7, forcing it on any number of unsuspecting (and often unappreciative) people. Arabian Horse is on my list of “All Time Top 5 Desert Island Albums”. And once I started bogging my annual Top 5 lists in 2012, the next three Gusgus albums all landed at #1 or #2.
Which brings us to Gusgus’ newest release, DanceOrama. Would I love it? Am I even capable of not loving it? Can I even listen to it objectively? And… does that even matter?
Fortunately these questions went out the window right from the opening synth lines of “The Terras”. It was clear DanceOrama was going to take me where I wanted to go.
Over the years I’ve come to appreciate Biggi’s contributions to Gusgus more and more and he has a lot of space to shine on DanceOrama, with instrumentals account for five of the album’s nine tracks. It reminds me a bit of Lies Are More Flexible (2018) in that regard. But where it differs from that album is in the vocals. Whereas Lies relied on long-time member Daníel Ágúst, with a few friends like John Grant providing backing, DanceOrama spotlights a number of prior Gusgus contributors. The ethereal Margrét Rán is back again after her Gusgus debut on 2021s Mobile Home, singing on two songs in her signature style. Högni is here as well after a two-album hiatus, joined on the track “Breaking Down” by Gusgus veteran Earth (Urður Hákonardóttir), the pair performing individual parts until coming together sublimely at the end of the track. And of course Daníel is here too, feeling oozing from his vocal cords.
With so many different singers, DanceOrama was in danger of losing its cohesion. But Gusgus is used to operating as a collective, and all the vocalists have experience collaborating with Biggi and Daníel (and each other in the case of Earth and Högni). What holds it together are the beats, Biggi’s sonic blueprint that connects all the individual pieces together to create a flowing “whole”. It starts with the introductory synths on the opening track “The Terras” and continues throughout – this is a dance record to the core. If there’s one track that could be used to stand for the entire album it’s the instrumental “Chaos Machine”, a synthesis of all the concepts into one unified piece. It’s the album’s north star.
Gusgus delivers with DanceOrama, their commitment to collaboration and showcasing the talents of their contributors ensuring that everyone is heard at their best. Delicate vocals, synths, and dance beats all come together as one, and it gets better with each and every listen.