XLR8R

Some albums evoke a sense of place so strongly that it's hard to imagine they were created elsewhere. So goes Fill The Heart Shaped Cup, birthed in L.A. by Carlos Niño and violinist/violist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, but nonetheless carrying the ethereal, lightly frosted fantasia of Iceland. Breaking past his hip-hop productions for Ammoncontact and Daedelus, Niño channels Northern artists like Múm and electronic-orchestral composer Jóhann Jóhannsson to arrive at billowing sheets of emotional sound. Daybreak dawns by the tide of strings and bells in the aptly titled "Triumph," which ends far too quickly two minutes in.