I was chilling with a little group of homies last night. My friend John, a talented singer-songwriter, has an itch for playing guitar, so when an acoustic guitar was fetched from the apartment he played a fine assortment of covers and originals. One of these covers was “Ritual Union,” by Swedish electronic band Little Dragon. The whole performance reminded me how much I dig their 2011 album of the same name Ritual Union. With full-bodied synths and simple kick-bass drums laying the groundwork for some seriously soulful vocals by the beautiful Yuki Nagano (featured on “Wildfire” in a recent post I did on English electronic group SBTRKT), the whole album plays through with ease. When asked in 2009 what movie she envisioned her music being a soundtrack for, she had this to say:
Perhaps a sci-fi with a bit of mystery… psychic martians, their dreams, fears and love. It would be psychedelic with pompous nature scenes and gloomy old Swedish winter vibes.
There certainly is an element of psychedelia to Ritual Union. Like Gardens & Villa, I could see a cult of white-clothed men and women following the band around in search of spirituality and orgies.
Without further ado, my favorites from Little Dragon’s latest album Ritual Union.
