Music I Liked – Kaleikr, Ossuarium, Tiny Ruins, 1349, Okkultist, Julia Jacklin

Music to kick off March with includes Kaleikr, Ossuarium, Tiny Ruins, 1349, Okkultist, and Julia Jacklin. I don’t have a clever introduction this week, but I do have good music.

Kaleikr

Kaleikr‘s Heart of Lead was bound to be my jam. It’s Icelandic, it’s black metal, it’s a given. I actually listened to the track “Neurodelirium” before the album was released and started to draft this post. Then a couple weeks later I rediscovered Kaleikr on another blog and added Heart of Lead to my list to blog about again.

Ossuarium

Ossuarium is a great name, but this Portland band’s album Living Tomb didn’t grab me the first time I heard it. It kept popping up on so many blogs, though, and each time I saw it I gave it another listen. Eventually I succumbed to its power. Proof that repeating your argument makes it stronger, I guess. Or maybe I was just in a mood the first time I heard it.

Tiny Ruins

The album Olympic Girls by Tiny Ruins is all plinky guitars and breathy folk melodies. Folks who make playlists will want to throw some of these tracks on a playlist with Teitur Magnasson. Anyway, good luck listening to this without rushing out to buy summer music festival tickets and cracking a lager in defiance of freezing temperatures outside.

1349

So I’m headed to Norway in April, which means everything associated with that country is suddenly twice as interesting as it would have been before I bought plane tickets. On top of that, this track, Dødskamp, is part of a partnership with the Munch museum where 1349 and other bands write songs based on lesser known paintings in the collection. The Munch museum is the second most important thing in Oslo for me (after the Viking Ship Museum, natch) so this song sounds like inevitability to me. Now I just have to track down the rest of the songs from the project.

Okkultist

Remember the part where things associated with countries I’ve traveled are auto-special? Okkultist is from Portugal. I’ve never been to Portugal proper, but after visiting the Azores I have fantasies of renting an apartment and spending months there like an old-school writer. Add to that the satisfying chug of Reinventing Evil, and you’ve got some music I like.

Julia Jacklin

Something about Julia Jacklin’s album Crushing reminds me of Frazey Ford, who was one of my Pickathon favorites last year. Jacklin is not quite so … I hate to use the word ballsy, so let’s just say there is less of a soul influence. But the music is every bit as real and just as engaging.