Easy review: three tracks, each between 10 and 29 minutes, every
moment electric. Correct, but the better story is how the new album
from Norwegian dance-music avatar Lindstrøm comes across humble
and restrained despite its opulent dimensions. As the first non-shitty
half-hour-long song of the millennium, the title track and centerpiece
marks a milestone of sorts, but you wouldn’t know it from casual
listening. That’s because Lindtsrøm’s liquified
Scando-Med-Italo-Beardo cuisine brims with campy, catchy, whimsical
delights. By piling layer upon layer in a kind of space-disco
palimpsest, he produces an ethereal ebb and flow that offers a
comfortable ride without ever becoming background music. Positively
slight at just ten minutes, the palpitating “Grand Ideas” pivots on a
simple melodic theme, but Lindstrøm never pulls the knot, opting
instead to let the Hoover-ized synth refrain slowly tighten its own
stranglehold. The track ends right around when “The Long Way Home”
really gets going. Toggling effortlessly between island kitsch and
antiseptic disco, the album’s third and best try spins a viciously
tight web that flirts with a triumphant climax but finishes instead in
groove and loud ringing — which is oddly appropriate for this
conquest statement. Clearly fond of cheeseball riffs and epic
narrative, Lindstrøm nevertheless recognizes the folly of
virtuosity. Wiser than heroic, he’s mock-quixotic. (Smalltown
Supersound)
Lindstrøm
Where You Go I Go Too
