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Dusted Reviews
Artist: Lindstrøm Album: Where You Go I Go Too Label: Smalltown Supersound Review date: Aug. 14, 2008 |
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For someone who sets the governor at 110, Hans-Peter Lindstrøm has risen to fame relatively fast. The scruffy Norwegian made a name for himself with 2005’s dance juggernaut, "I Feel Space," a subsequent LP of collaborations with fellow countryman Thomas Hermansen (a.k.a. Prins Thomas), and some choice remixes for Franz Ferdinand and LCD Soundsystem. Not bad for a guy who grew up on country music and FM radio in a Nordic oil town. Yet, even with a healthy discography that helped define "space disco" for a new millennium, Lindstrøm never had a solo album to his credit. The 2006 singles collection It’s a Feedelity Affair was an admirable demonstration of how he could change over five years, but it did not answer to the charge of how he actually had.
After delays in mixing and post-production that pushed the album back more than two months, those disparate disco influences have finally fused into a full-length, and Where You Go I Go Too obliges as a cosmic masterwork, recalling Lindstrøm’s previous heights while somehow soaring to new ones. And he does it with just three tracks that clock in at just under an hour. Instead of following a more traditional format full of shorter songs and cropped ideas, Lindstrøm takes the opposite approach on Where You Go… by blowing out his influences and back catalog to their limits. The presentation might have been a calculated risk, but its sound never was. This is Lindstrøm at his most potently self-indulgent.
The title track initially idles in white noise and pulsing arpeggios, stockpiling momentum for the 29-minute journey and setting the stage for a series of rapt glissandos. Lindstrøm gradually complements the drama with handclaps, bell chimes and drugged-out guitar. These elements subtly emerge again for “Grand Ideas” – the shortest of the trio at 10 minutes – and the standout finale “The Long Way Home,” which ascends and dissolves at the same time. Of course, these are descriptions you’ve probably heard before in the context of a Lindstrøm review: Cerrone, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Michael Shrieve – the influences are all still there. They’re just amplified.
There’s no question that Where You Go I Go Too is one of the year’s most coherent, craftily executed albums. It thrives, not by redefining the hyper-extended disco workout but by exemplifying it. Those tempted to cry imitation rather than innovation would have it a lot easier if Lindstrøm wasn’t calling himself out first: He coats his demure rhythms in ‘80s excess and early electro, flaunting the pop narcotic. The veneers of krautrock and psychedelia merely bring his enthusiasm into bold relief. The bottom line is, Lindstrøm no longer fears anything - not criticism, not ambition and, hopefully, not success.
By Patrick Masterson
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It’s A Feedelity Affair / Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas