Dusted Reviews
Artist: Lindstrøm Album: It’s A Feedelity Affair / Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas Label: Smalltown Supersound Review date: Sep. 28, 2006 |
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Lindstrøm’s calling-card single “I Feel Space” re-jigged disco under a night sky, with comet’s trails of vaporous synths striking out across deep blue bass. Its cosmic/lunar aspects echo through other strong cuts on It’s a Feedelity Affair, which compiles tracks from vinyl released on Lindstrøm’s Feedelity label between 2003 and 2006. Writers tend to harp on the cosmic/disco interface with Lindstrøm, but it’s hard not to riff on 10 minute epics like “There’s A Drink in My Bedroom and I Need A Hot Lady,” which blatantly steal ever-ascending Mororder-esque arpeggiations that spiral ever-upward, pulsing through brilliant metallic textures: imagine hot steam gushing up a freshly-scrubbed elevator shaft. Scratchy proto-funk guitars and airtight handclaps seal the deal, though some of the biggest surprises come when Lindstrøm lets off the loquaciousness and empties his productions of all their detail, as on the spooked “Gentle as a Giant.”
Originally released in 2005 on Eskimo, Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas is an odd one. The duo have quite consciously made an ‘album’s album,' which means it’s light on the Italo-disco off cuts and heavy on the head nodding. It also offers its pleasures slowly. It’d be cruel to call the album downtempo, though certain tracks certainly fit that remit, with jangling, crisp acoustic guitars and drowsy pianos also harking back to '70s soft rock. The duo tend to genre-hop: some of the chintzy synths are positively Kosmiche, where “Sykkelsesong” draws on the toffee-brittle funk chic of post-punk guitar. “Feel AM” is so bucolic it could almost have fallen from Ultramarine’s Every Man and Woman is a Star (this is good), but sometimes Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas come close to the soft-focus kiddie melodies of idylltronica (this is not so good).
By Jon Dale
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