Song of the Day: Sin Fang - Look at the Light

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s featured song, selected by Midday Show host Cheryl Waters, is “Look at the Light” by Sin Fang from the 2013 album Flowers on Morr Music.

Sin Fang - Look at the Light (MP3)

It wasn't too long ago that we featured Sindri Már Sigfússon's project Sin Fang for a Song of the Day podcast, but that was from his recent Half Dreams EP, a sort of gathering of inter-album strays. His newly released third full-length, Flowers, though, recorded and produced by Alex Somers (Sígur Rós, Jónsi), finds the ideas germinated throughout Sindri's past career in full bloom. With Seabear, his first and perhaps still most popular project, Sindri developed lush orchestral pop, but he eventually turned to Sin Fang Bous to tinker with more experimental sounds. After having dropped the "Bous" and added more members to the band, and while Seabear seems to be on indefinite hiatus (as the stars need to align to get all of those bandmates together), Sin Fang has blossomed through cross pollination of both aesthetics. Flowers ranges from anthemic choruses like on the album opener, "Young Boys," to genre-jumping indie pop as on "Feel See" and the Animal Collective-esque rambunctiousness of "Everything Alright" to the rich and dreamlike orchestration of today's featured song. "Look at the Light" might almost be a Seabear outtake if it weren't for the intriguing twists and ambiguously evocative lyrics that Sindri adds to it: "Breathe into my mouth / Write your name in my palm / I couldn't speak for a long time / Everything you did was some sort of sign for me to read into / But I couldn't understand you." It's the type of confused longing one feels during a first love, and it's these types of passionate feelings of youth that Sindri effectively evokes throughout the entire album. Whether or not you consider it his most accessible Sin Fang album, Flowers is certainly his most fertile.

Unfortunately, there's no American tour scheduled yet for Sin Fang, but you can watch live video and check out photos from their session at KEX Hostel last October during our broadcast at Iceland Airwaves on the blog here and here. You can keep up with Sin Fang on their website and Facebook page, and you should definitely check out these gorgeous skateboard decks designed around the new album in collaboration with Alien Workshop. For now, here's the new video for today's featured song: