"It's Album Time with Todd Terje" fuses the nostalgic excitement of disco, funk, latin, jazz, retro film scores, and... elevator music??? - all with synthesizers from outer space.
4/5
What's wrong with elevator music? It's relaxing, it subconsciously elevates your mood, it helps cover up those awkward silences between you and that one other weird guy in the corner. Though, comparing something to elevator music has become somewhat of an insult. It might sound like it, but it really isn't a main influence on "It's Album Time with Todd Terje." I had to mention it though, because the music reminds me of the album art on Smash Mouth's "Astro Lounge." Its cover shows a big circular observatory towering from a red planet into the outer reaches of space. It must have one crazily awesome elevator ride to the top. There's a lounge inside the observatory complete with futuristic furnishings, bright colored cocktails, and waitresses with glowing silver skin. Terje's cover instead shows something of the past. He wants to bring back the forgotten styles that once ruled the nightclubs of the 70's and 80's and the classiness of the lounge piano before the pop/rock explosion of the 60's. But after just a few minutes in Terje's fantasy, we are transported into a future where all genres are mashed up and exuberantly celebrated.
The first track, "Intro," starts off with a descending, arpeggiated cosmic glitter that cleverly repeats out of sync with the rhythm. It reverberates around as if we were in a bio-luminescent cave that reflected shimmering light off its rippled pools of water. The straight 16th note beat that comes in uses shakers, snares and soft bass drum hits. Then, the chordal strums from an electronically-processed guitar turn what felt like a chilled out trip-hop groove into a Daft Punk-influenced electro-disco rock. Sirens in the background get turned up and build energy for the inevitable lift off. A whispered chant, "it's album time, it's album time, it's album time...," builds with the other layers in rousing anticipation. The sirens reach their peak and a gigantic voice bellows, "IT'S ALBUM TIME!" BOOM! There's a huge explosion. This is kind of not what I was expecting. It's strange that such an expertly mesmerizing sound peaks with such a clichéd DJ sound effect, but that's Todd Terje for you. He explores emotionally dense compositions, but he's also very playful and has a sense of humor mixed with the notion to not take things too seriously. Most of all, he just wants you to dance.
The next three tracks may be the most compositionally impressive. While "Leisure Suit Preben" may not be a good follow up to the hype that was built up on "Intro," it's still oddly engaging. A retro bass awkwardly struts along an alien chord progression with occasional turntable whips and scratches. It uncomfortably goes on for a full minute and then drastically changes to what sounds like a sort of 60's Star Trek soap opera theme. Yet again, it changes back to the retro bass but this time with bossa nova style bells and xylophones.
"Preben Goes to Acapulco" is a continuation, which takes us to the 70's. It has a funky disco beat under some jazzy synth riffs. It's suggestive of a disco competition where all sorts of ridiculous dance moves would be demonstrated for the first time. Acapulco, by the way, is a city in Mexico full of beach resorts and wild nightlife where Hollywood stars and millionaires would retire to back in the day. However, this track really just travels all over the place, feeling like an expert improvisation over an ever-changing chord progression.
If you haven't danced enough, in comes a jazzy salsa on "Svensk Sås," which translates to "Swedish sauce." This track as well as a later track, "Alfonso Muskedunder," could be the greatest moments of the album. It's a revitalization of the Latin fusion that hasn't been touched by a whole lot of artists for a long while. And with an expert DJ like Terje taking on the job, we couldn't be happier. Both are fast-paced, syncopated and melodized with instrumental vocals that could be reminiscent of jazz flute humming. While they sounds very similar to regular Latin jazz, Terje still personalizes it with his background electronic basses and textures. "Svenk Sas" is a smooth mambo that, towards the end, utilizes a heavy whirring sound effect in its background vocals (a sound most commonly found in dubstep). "Alfonso Muskedunder" is a highly rhythmic latin rock with insanely fast and complex percussion parts and a melodic style similar to 60's film scores.
Four of the twelve tracks on this album were already released in 2012. "Strandbar," "Swing Star (Part 1)," "Swing Star (Part 2)," and "Inspector Norse" were part of Terje's "It's the Arps EP." For those who are already familiar with this EP, the album will be somewhat of a letdown, seeing as a third of it is recycled works. Anyway, they're fascinating because they were made using only the ARP 2600, a semi-modular analog subtractive audio synthesizer, which was a popular tool for many notable artists of the 70's and 80's such as David Bowie and Herbie Hancock.
"Inspector Norse" was a big hit in 2012 among followers of the house music dance scene and was considered one of the best tracks of the year by a number of critics and magazines. It inspired a 15-minute mockumentary called "Whateverest," in which Terje says he dedicated the song to a Youtuber who called himself Inspector Norse. This character that Terje made up represents a part of himself and the kind of fan he wishes to make music for. Inspector Norse is a lonely and failed musician who has to take care of his sick father and run a tanning salon to make money. In his spare time he dances around his hometown with his iPod, not having a care in the world what others might think of him. At night he cooks up a drug he calls, "The Inspector Norse Special", and raves by himself in his own living room. But eventually, he slips into a drug-influenced depression and wanders around aimlessly in the streets searching for some kind of salvation. In the end, he will always have music to dance to, and that is what frees him from his troubles. Without it, he would have nothing. "Whateverest" is alluring in the simplistic beauty of its tragic scenario. Watch the "Inspector Norse" music video, which is a shortened version of "Whateverest," below.
The first track, "Intro," starts off with a descending, arpeggiated cosmic glitter that cleverly repeats out of sync with the rhythm. It reverberates around as if we were in a bio-luminescent cave that reflected shimmering light off its rippled pools of water. The straight 16th note beat that comes in uses shakers, snares and soft bass drum hits. Then, the chordal strums from an electronically-processed guitar turn what felt like a chilled out trip-hop groove into a Daft Punk-influenced electro-disco rock. Sirens in the background get turned up and build energy for the inevitable lift off. A whispered chant, "it's album time, it's album time, it's album time...," builds with the other layers in rousing anticipation. The sirens reach their peak and a gigantic voice bellows, "IT'S ALBUM TIME!" BOOM! There's a huge explosion. This is kind of not what I was expecting. It's strange that such an expertly mesmerizing sound peaks with such a clichéd DJ sound effect, but that's Todd Terje for you. He explores emotionally dense compositions, but he's also very playful and has a sense of humor mixed with the notion to not take things too seriously. Most of all, he just wants you to dance.
The next three tracks may be the most compositionally impressive. While "Leisure Suit Preben" may not be a good follow up to the hype that was built up on "Intro," it's still oddly engaging. A retro bass awkwardly struts along an alien chord progression with occasional turntable whips and scratches. It uncomfortably goes on for a full minute and then drastically changes to what sounds like a sort of 60's Star Trek soap opera theme. Yet again, it changes back to the retro bass but this time with bossa nova style bells and xylophones.
"Preben Goes to Acapulco" is a continuation, which takes us to the 70's. It has a funky disco beat under some jazzy synth riffs. It's suggestive of a disco competition where all sorts of ridiculous dance moves would be demonstrated for the first time. Acapulco, by the way, is a city in Mexico full of beach resorts and wild nightlife where Hollywood stars and millionaires would retire to back in the day. However, this track really just travels all over the place, feeling like an expert improvisation over an ever-changing chord progression.
If you haven't danced enough, in comes a jazzy salsa on "Svensk Sås," which translates to "Swedish sauce." This track as well as a later track, "Alfonso Muskedunder," could be the greatest moments of the album. It's a revitalization of the Latin fusion that hasn't been touched by a whole lot of artists for a long while. And with an expert DJ like Terje taking on the job, we couldn't be happier. Both are fast-paced, syncopated and melodized with instrumental vocals that could be reminiscent of jazz flute humming. While they sounds very similar to regular Latin jazz, Terje still personalizes it with his background electronic basses and textures. "Svenk Sas" is a smooth mambo that, towards the end, utilizes a heavy whirring sound effect in its background vocals (a sound most commonly found in dubstep). "Alfonso Muskedunder" is a highly rhythmic latin rock with insanely fast and complex percussion parts and a melodic style similar to 60's film scores.
Four of the twelve tracks on this album were already released in 2012. "Strandbar," "Swing Star (Part 1)," "Swing Star (Part 2)," and "Inspector Norse" were part of Terje's "It's the Arps EP." For those who are already familiar with this EP, the album will be somewhat of a letdown, seeing as a third of it is recycled works. Anyway, they're fascinating because they were made using only the ARP 2600, a semi-modular analog subtractive audio synthesizer, which was a popular tool for many notable artists of the 70's and 80's such as David Bowie and Herbie Hancock.
"Inspector Norse" was a big hit in 2012 among followers of the house music dance scene and was considered one of the best tracks of the year by a number of critics and magazines. It inspired a 15-minute mockumentary called "Whateverest," in which Terje says he dedicated the song to a Youtuber who called himself Inspector Norse. This character that Terje made up represents a part of himself and the kind of fan he wishes to make music for. Inspector Norse is a lonely and failed musician who has to take care of his sick father and run a tanning salon to make money. In his spare time he dances around his hometown with his iPod, not having a care in the world what others might think of him. At night he cooks up a drug he calls, "The Inspector Norse Special", and raves by himself in his own living room. But eventually, he slips into a drug-influenced depression and wanders around aimlessly in the streets searching for some kind of salvation. In the end, he will always have music to dance to, and that is what frees him from his troubles. Without it, he would have nothing. "Whateverest" is alluring in the simplistic beauty of its tragic scenario. Watch the "Inspector Norse" music video, which is a shortened version of "Whateverest," below.
The two other hits on this album are less impressive than many of the aforementioned tracks. "Delorean Dynamite" and "Johnny and Mary" venture into pop territory as they seem to be composed for the purpose of baiting listeners into listening to the rest of the album. They are both extremely well crafted, but their simple, slow-moving chordal themes repeat tediously past the 6-minute mark. The Delorean was made famous in the 80's "Back to the Future" trilogy, so "Delorean Dynamite" is probably made to feel like a high-speed trip through time or maybe even the cosmos in general. "Johnny and Mary" is a cover of Robert Palmer's 1980 synthpop hit single of the same name. It is instead slowed down into a pop ballad with heavily reverberated, tone-morphing synth chords and arpeggios, and the soft-spoken vocals of Bryan Ferry, the lead singer of the legendary Roxy Music.
There is one other track on this album, "Oh Joy," but it isn't worth talking about. The album hits a lengthy 59 minutes and cannot justify its length when it has tracks that reuse similar ideas and sounds. Its strengths are in its diverse exploration of several different musical styles and cultures while sometimes using daring but genius transitions to string them together. However, the album as a whole is unfortunately not as coherent. The lackluster opening in "Leisure Suit Preben" that follows "Intro" is self-defeating, and "Johnny and Mary" is an extremely off-putting and lyrically plain snooze-fest that sits in the middle of a very complex and imaginative instrumental album. Even the expert Latin tracks feel somewhat out of place. I think Terje realizes these faults though. The album title is indicative that it was simply just time to put out an album that compiled works he had previously created in his spare time when he wasn't so-often producing music for other artists. Despite this, "Its Album Time..." could most likely be the best electronic album of the year. I would not be surprised if Mr. Terje finds even greater success in the future. He is certainly a unique and important talent to look out for.
Some Latin-flavored fun...
My personal favorite...
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