Haiku Salut are a Derbyshire
trio who base their music around the electronic ambience of Iceland's múm and
the French soundtrack god Yann Tiersen. These three ladies have their heart in
the right place and their musical preferences on their sleeves, or shirts
considering Dan Deacon's electronic prowess. They released their debut EP How
We Got Along After The Yarn Bomb in 2011 and will release their debut album
Tricolore later this month. For now we have the pre-release single
"Los Elefantes" to enthuse our taste buds.
"Los Elefantes" is a
lovely combination of electronic, contemporary classical and what would be
considered as folk. They follow the same guidelines as múm, their Icelandic counterparts
Amiina and early Four Tet releases. We like to group all of these together into
one small but unique genre known as folktronica. Genre's aside, Haiku Salut are
an interesting trio. The soft piano accompaniment doesn’t clash with the
eventful build-up that occurs. There's a standout accordion, which never really
goes with anything remotely well unless it's a lo-fi recording of Anne Frank
concepts... But it works here.
The problem is: I'm expecting
the electronic beat to enter, and it does enter. Predictably, the electronic
drum pattern enters on time and among the accordion, piano and reverb effects. múm managed
to get away with this for so long because they had an ambience about them that
only Icelanders with accents have. And that's not supposed to be a play on
words. Haiku Salut are not múm,
and they're certainly
not going to be releasing an album even close to Yesterday Was Dramatic -
Today Is OK. They can however separate themselves from a minimalistic genre
that has never really caught on. The accordion is a nice touch, and there's no
denying this trio have musical skill and ideas. This is a tricky genre to succeed
with, but it doesn't look as if Haiku Salut care or are even bothered by the
impending doom of minimalistic folktronica - maybe Haiku Salut can change that.
~Eddie
