The Island

Vinyl LP pressing. Chris Forsyth & Koen Holtkamp have earned reputations as fierce, creative artists and respected masters of their instruments (guitar & synthesizers, respectively). The Island is the second collaborative album from these Philadelphia and Brooklyn-based musicians. Rehearsals for the sessions amounted to a couple of days drinking wine, cooking, and hanging out on the beach at the Jersey Shore, and the rhythm and motion of the water seems to have had an undeniable effect on the sessions. The result is an album that despite the freewheeling nature of it's origins, sounds thoroughly composed and song-oriented. Tracks like "Long Beach Idyll" and "Cosmic Richard" fuse Forsyth's desert-dusted guitar and Holtkamp's cascading electronics into airy, blissful meditations afloat on an endless ocean, while "Sun Blind" and "Alternator" crackle with intensity, with both musicians seemingly coaxing each other towards something new and primal.