This January, I took a holiday to Iceland. It had always been a dream of mine to visit this country, quite frankly it’s beautiful and one of the most naturally interesting places on the planet. However, seeing everything that Iceland had to offer involved a lot of driving, and obviously driving requires the right soundtrack.
Whenever I go away, I like to shoot video, in a way to make a memory about the trip. Armed with a GoPro to shoot on, all I need is a good song to set the video to. With Iceland being covered in a blanket of deep snow, I needed something that was going to capture how chilly it was, but also how spectacular the scenery was.
I landed on taking something from one of my all time favourite albums, I Forget Where We Were by Ben Howard. The album itself is a triumph, making a further evolution of Ben Howard’s musical prowess, and is the clear follow on from the The Burgh Island EP and the more acoustic Every Kingdom.
From the start of Small Things, you know that you’re in for some musical genius, which is further enforced by the hauntingly gorgeous title track I Forget Where We Were. Perhaps the greatest triumph on the album is The End of the Affair which takes songwriting of heartbreak to a whole new level. Despite the undeniable brilliance of all the tracks on the album - as to be expected from Ben Howard (who in my opinion has never made a bad song) - I landed on All Is Now Harmed for my soundtrack.
All Is Now Harmed has real atmosphere to it, as well as the echoed high notes working like magic with the icy shots of the video. Throughout the song, the slow drum beats, combined with the building guitars culminate in a crescendo of epic proportions, making it my highlight of the album.
If you haven’t already listened to I Forget Where We Were, firstly, what have you been doing with yourself? And secondly, get on it.
