iamiwhoami: bounty (To Whom It May Concern / PIAS / Mushroom)

2:39 U-1 / 3:41 U-2

Released: Now

- Swedish electro-pop duo iamamiwhoami (comprising left-field chanteuse Jonna Lee and producer Claes Björklund, oh and videographer Robin Kempe-Bergman, so sorry, wait, trio then), tend to be a bit confusing. This ‘new’ release, bounty is, in itself, a bit of a head-scratcher, as it’s actually the prologue to their 2012 album, kin.

Following me so far? Good. iamamiwhoami coalesced virally out of the nebulous stuff of which the internet is spun. Videos of a man doing oddly ‘sexy’ things and a woman in a variety of most unusual costumes dancing crazy caught many people's attention, for a while. This was the carefully orchestrated introduction to iamamiwhoami’s debut, kin and the group took such a self-indulgently long time getting there, that they nearly lost everyone’s interest along the way.

Fortunately the album, of completely new material, turned out to be every bit as exciting as the trail of crumbs the led up to it. Jonna Lee’s vocal stylings are part Karin Dreijer Andersson and part Karen O (and she’s not a bad dancer) while Claes Björklund’s production is as exciting when he’s doing deceptively simple, melodious electro-pop or veering off into experimental mania that would do either The Knife or Björk proud. Everyone liked Kin so much in fact, that those erstwhile fragments of iamamiwhoami, littering the internet, have been collected into an album, bounty, and given a much wider release than anything they’ve done before.

Another happy idea, because these songs, mostly titled with just one letter, which, properly sequenced forms b-o-u-n-t-y - actually b-o-u-u-n-t-y, but’s let not nit-pick - are thus clearly meant to be together and do a pretty effective job of demonstrating that. Further, they work equally well with or without the wealth of creepy videography with which they were originally sandwiched and which, sweatily, I’ve been working my way through and certainly causing my youtube account to become a much darker place, in the process.

I’ve talked so much about how all this came about that I’ve left myself very little time to talk about the thing itself. To give you a simple idea: it divides neatly into ethereal, floating vignettes, which are the gateways to the dancefloor bangers. Neither, however, is ever without moments of really effective melody or eye-poppingly experimental flourishes.

Even if you don’t find this as absolutely convincing as iamamiwhoami’s debut proper, there’s still plenty to like and it is a nice little keepsake till whatever the trio are planning next and it’s that much more for the many listeners and ...watchers... who’re coming to iamamiwhoami for the first time.

- Chris Cobcroft.