Yndling: Time Time Time (I’m In The Palm of Your Hand)
Spirit Goth Records
Our Score
Norwegian dream pop solo artist Yndling returns with her highly anticipated second album, Time Time Time (I’m In The Palm of Your Hand). The record marks a bold step forward, packing creative ideas, beautiful musicality, and expansive, otherworldly indie-electronic soundscapes comparable to Men I Trust, Beach House, and Portishead.
As the press release describes, the album is deliberately divided into two parts. The first leans into shoegaze and dream pop, drawing on influences like Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, and Beach House, with lush, reverb-soaked arrangements. The latter half ventures into trip-hop-infused dream pop, integrating sample-driven production reminiscent of Massive Attack, Portishead, and Mazzy Star. Yndling herself explains that the first part is inspired by classic shoegaze and dream pop, while the second blends trip hop and dream pop with touches of fuzzed-out shoegaze guitar.
The album does indeed shift, but maintains a fluid, cohesive atmosphere and sound palette. From the very start, opener Hold on to a Feeling captures breathtaking soundscaping with dark experimental production, deep fuzzy bass, processed vocals, and reverse drums, creating a dreamlike state that sets the tone. As the track progresses, the distant vocals draw comparisons to Daughter before the song abruptly comes to a close.
Even if it’s a Lie (I Don’t Mind) embraces a more buoyant, direct sound, blending modulation-soaked live instrumentation with vocal sampling and elegant vocals. Its shimmering, chorus-tinted guitars intertwined with the vocals evoke a sonic world comparable to Cocteau Twins and deary, delivered with a beautiful atmospheric flourish.
Elsewhere, the heavily streamed It’s Almost Like You’re Here balances its driving, danceable drums with the ethereal bliss that makes Yndling’s music so spellbinding. This brightness stands in contrast to the distant, almost post-apocalyptic grit and swirling cloudlike reverbs of As Fast As I Can.
Further into the album, title track Time Time Time (I’m In The Palm of Your Hand) provides another standout moment, bringing elegant picked guitar lines over bass-heavy production and a swaying, swing-leaning beat, while Yndling’s captivating, sultry vocal delivery dances over the dreamy backdrop. You Know I Hate It (How The World Moves On) shifts the sound in a fresh direction, offering yet another highlight. Processed lo-fi guitar tones, cinematic synths, and thoughtful pacing allow the half-spoken vocals to glide above the instrumentation, forming a stunning journey through varying moods that builds to an expansive climax of synth strings and driving drums.
Closing track Some Things You Don’t Get ends the album on a fittingly punchy, fuzzy blend of fizzing synths and reverby, distant vocals before shifting midway into a swirl of strings and finger-picked acoustic guitar bubbling over atmospheric electronics.
At its core, Time Time Time (I’m In The Palm of Your Hand) grapples with identity, the fluidity of self, and the persistent illusion of arrival in life. Yndling explores the different ways we exist across relationships and situations, and the disconnect between our internal experiences and the outside world. The conceptual foundation of the album stems from two songs, It’s Almost Like You’re Here and the title track, which, though sonically different, share thematic resonance and inspired the album’s dual structure. Yndling reflects, “It’s about all the different people we are in different situations, about hurting people without meaning to, and trying to extend that understanding to other people too when they behave in a way that might hurt me.”
Produced in collaboration with Adrian Einestor Sandberg, the album showcases Yndling’s evolution toward darker and more experimental territory. The production is meticulous, with string samples, lush reverb, and layers of noise and ambience creating delicate yet visceral soundscapes. The album conjures images of Norwegian winters, with their long, introspective nights. It’s a stunning effort that is truly captivating, full of depth, and punctuated by genuinely breathtaking moments. Danceable at times and dreamlike and intimate at others, it highlights both the buoyancy and emotional sincerity that make Yndling such a compelling artist, and reinforces her position as one of the most intriguing voices in modern dream pop.
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All words by Simon Lucas-Hughes. More writing by Simon Lucas-Hughes can be found at his author’s archive.
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