Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The formula of Lindstrøm's expansive sounds and Christabelle's icing-on-the-cake voice adds up to a genuinely good album, Real Life Is No Cool works like good ecstasy on a dancefloor.
Composed of free-floating tidbits of sounds, Real Life Is No Cool shows Lindstrøm's newest take on retro-futurism. While his former works are always rooted in some sort of genre, the tracks here seem to break free from any mold he has founded. Although this may seem like it would detract from any sense of accessibility on this album, Lindstrøm's latest work is chock full of pop sensibilities.
Lindstrøm mines a rich seam of old funk, soul and disco, taking these ingredients and producing a brand of retro-futurist, multi-layered stomp-fest all of his own. The floating passivity of Christabelle's seemingly improvised couplets bring a welcome level of humanity back to the field and uplifts by means of raw emotional connection, rather than one repeated-to-death motif.
This Scandinavian sound has been spearheaded by the likes of Prins Thomas and Morgan Geist, culminating in the runaway success of their take-over of the Big Chill's Club tent a couple of year ago. After releasing some storming 12"'s and becoming a sought-after remixer in his own right on Oslo's Smalltown Supersound compilations, Lindstrom himself first broke through to wider acclaim with his debut It's A Feedelity Affair. He finally followed this last year with the epic mini-album Where You Go I Go Too which refined and built upon his trademark atmospherics to beguiling effect, appearing in many critic's `Best Of 2009' lists. All of which has a certain bearing on the level of expectation around this full length collaboration with fellow Norwegian, Christabelle.
The real revelation here is Lindstrøm's newfound concision. An idea that's satisfied in three minutes has never been a goal in any of his music before; whatever the merits of Where You Go I Go Too, none of its three tracks could ever work as a single edit. But Real Life changes that, charting beats and manic drum passages in digestible bites. "Baby Don't Stop," whose Chromeo meets Kool & the Gang opening seems in questionable taste until the whole, surprisingly and thrillingly, familiarizes as a Michael Jackson tribute of the highest order, is pop in glaring pieces. And from those pieces (catchy bass riff, syncopated guitar lick, punchy horns) to the disco beat and disco words ("Can't stop / I can't get enough"), it's nothing less than a worthy reimagining of "Don't Stop `til You Get Enough," which makes it the album's standout track--not necessarily the best track, though there's an argument for that as well, but the one most at odds with all of Lindstrøm's output before.
It can be unsettling to witness the artist seemingly alienate himself from his defining music; I almost want to sigh with relief when a synthesizer briefly replaces a horn line, moving a track in a more comfortable disco direction. Or see other jarring moments: the 4/4 dance beat competing with slow guitar triplets on "Looking for What?; the backing track staggering along on "Lovesick" while Christabelle sounds physically ill; the tape-looped psychedelic noise assault of "Never Say Never." These deviations from the Lindstrøm norm, not to mention Christabelle's very presence, carry a novelty that can initially prevent any song from congealing properly, making the whole pop move a dead-end.
Only in time does Real Life is No Cool seem a logical step for Lindstrøm to have taken. "Let It Happen" moves to the ultra-smooth groove at the backbone of a thick synthetic haze--it's resonant but not frilly, punchy but not overwhelming. All the consistent, buzzing sonority makes the machine-gun drums echo forebodingly while a male voice adds some low-end opacity to an already deep soundscape; remove the vocals and you're looking at an uptempo outtake from Where You Go I Go Too. Real Life`s pacing especially anticipates the criticism that the record moves too far, too fast. Every time Lindstrøm leaves his comfort zone--or the listener's comfort zone in what the listener expects from him--he calmly but authoritatively leads us back into recognizable pastures. After starting the record with six minutes of controlled chaos, he mimics the mechanical, hyper-planned feel of his long-form suites when the beat snaps to attention on "Lovesick." Similarly, the rat-tat-tat drums on "Let It Happen" lead into "Keep It Up"'s treble synths and steady, driving repetition; the forceful horns on "Baby Can't Stop" give way to a largely formless "Let's Practise"; and the clamorous "Never Say Never" sets the stage for the drowsy closer "High & Low."
It's a long-form pattern evolving in patchwork, a big declarative departure, risky but assured, for a shamelessly poppy direction. These sensibilities may have been channeled into something less approachable in the past, or at least less practical, but his attention to detail and ear for melody were always there, waiting to be mined. Once the shock of the new dissipates, what's left is an impeccably assembled record worth indulging with the vigor that any of Lindstrøm's Christabelle-less work deserves.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Real Life Is No Cool
2010 release from Norwegian Electronic pioneer Lindstrom, who teams up with vocalist Christabelle (AKA Solale) to create a Disco-Pop platter. Real Life Is No Cool is an edgy Pop album of structured chaos and hypnotic beats. Lindstrom provided the structure for Christabelle to let loose and improvise most of the lyrics on the spot while they jammed.
0 comments:
Post a Comment