Redder – Walk Long Play

Sombre Finnish duo Redder pull back the curtain on debut LP Walk Long Play, the followup to 2013’s sparse EP Border/Lines, and the stage is pretty bare. Cloaked in Vesa Hoikka’s austere electronics and Frans Saraste’s dark, folk-inspired arrangements, the pair’s vocals (mostly Saraste, occasionally Hoikka) whisper like a detached, nordic RY X.

Compositionally, WLP is spectral and fragmented. Fifteen More Minutes feels weighed down by its own honking bass refrain, while the disconsolate Tunnels aches for nine minutes, lost at sea amid languid guitar, brushing pulses and softened drum patterns. Kolumba Museum is almost hymn-like in solemnity, and with closing track Alarm’s reverberating piano and vocals, there’s more than a little of the same desolation brandished by Manchester’s MONEY. These Finns produce a blend of trip-hop that sits with a weight in your gut and a fog in your brain. Lights off and headphones on, WLP is transportive; just don’t stick it on at a party.