I'm Kingfisher - Arctic

Indie-folk seems to be a genre that keeps growing and growing. Maybe people are sick of the over produced, over complicated music that seems to fill the air waves and venues across the world these days. Maybe it’s a reaction to this modern technology driven society we live in these days, but as far as music goes the folk side of things really seems to have been experiencing ar resurgence over the last few years. Or maybe I’ve just been missing out all these years. Either way, Swedish artist Thomas Denver Johnsson, or I’m Kingfisher as calls himself, is yet another incredible indie follk act. With artists like Mogwai and Animal Collective among the more established acts that I’m Kingfisher is currently being compared to you soon get the impression that while it is essentially folk music there is a large air of experimentalism looming around his music. Johnsson has been much influenced by the journeys of exploration by Norwegian Nobel Peace prize winner Dr. Fridjof Nansen. With his music conjuring up images of far off lands covered in snow and ice, I’m Kingfisher captures the essence and the desolate landscapes that have inspired him so beautifully, most perfectly on the track paying homage to his hero ‘Nansen’. While Nansen has been a big influence, there is a also a universal feel to all the songs on ‘Arctic’. It is all about the tundra, the sites, the feelings, but on another level it feels, at least to me, that it could be about more than just a literal journey, or adventure, but also the journeys we go through in life. Maybe I’ve read too much into things, but to me there seems to be the essence of something that applies to everyone. Unless of course you only knock around with Arctic explorers in which this is pretty much a folk version of the Arctic Monkeys album to us mere mortal, run of the mill city living types. Songs like ‘Deer Theatre’, ‘A Continent lLst’ and the vaguely Beatles-esque ‘Arctic Fox Too Majestic for the Tundra’ it really does feel like you’re being taken on a journey through some sort of Narnia-esque world and it’s gorgeous. Musically while there is of course a strong use of acoustic guitar throughout the album, it is subtle electronic sound and the gentle introduction of trumpets on ‘Peacock Colour Song’ and other similar components that really add to the warmth and depth of ‘Arctic’. It somehow manages to sound stripped back but with these left in. This is a really magical album from a highly imaginative and accomplished album. I feel my life is slightly better each time I listen to ‘Arctic’.

Track Listing:-

1 Willing Night Plants
2 Svalbard
3 Feline Funeral
4 Nansen
5 Deer Theatre
6 Peacock Color Song
7 A Continent Lost
8 Expedition
9 Twin Sorrow
10 Arctic Fox Too Majestic For The Tundra
11 The Whale Hunt

Interviews

Interview (2011)

I'm Kingfisher is the new project of Swedish anti-folk musician Thomas Denver Jonsson. He talks to Adrian Huggins about his new album 'Arctic', and explains the influence of the wilderness and Nobel prize winner and adventurer Fridjof Nansen on his recording