I could use this space to write a review of the lovely packaging, but I think Colin is much better than me at that kind of thing.  Suffice to say it is lovely and colourful and features bits of card that you have to puzzellate into a square.   Come to think of it, not enough albums come with puzzles.  Math rock doesn’t count.  Joanna Newsom’s lyrics don’t count.  Maybe my brain is just puzzle-starved and I should see that new David Lynch movie this weekend to satiate it…

Efterklang certainly are filmic.  They have taken the b/w template of their Tripper album - electronics, strings -and coloured it in until the disparate shades smear and smudge together (as a child I would often try to layer as many colours of crayon on top of each other as I could, expecting to attain chromatic nirvana in the process, but actually merely obtaining a shitty brown; Efterklang have done rather better).

The five songs on this EP started live as live set filler, becoming live set staples and then live set favourites.  They have taken them and worked on them in the studio, adorning them with trumpet, piano, string quartet, choir, and moody Icelandicness - “Falling Horses” has epic density, prime era Constellation records stuff; the green mountains of  “Himmelbjerget” overlook a dark valley.  “Hands Playing Butterfly” is deceptively slight; its wonderful blue shimmer leading us up to the drunken stomparound of “Towards The Bare Hill”.

Under Giant Trees comes full circle with the full and spirited “Jojo”, completing a short if substantial release.  You could do much worse than finding yourself lost under the giant trees in Efterklang’s little world for a while this weekend (it may well beat spending several hours in one of David Lynch’s).

Hear a live version of “Jojo” here, from the band’s website.