Various Artists - The Sound of Norway

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  • Having never been to Norway myself, I can't say for certain whether this is the kind of music that genuinely soundtracks the streets of Oslo or drifts, cloud-like over the majestic natural beauty of the Geirangerfjord. What is apparent from listening to The Sound of Norway, however, is that it is highly representative of the kind of music that everyone expects to hear emerging from the country. First up is Ralph Myers' "My Dream Queen," a trippy, spacey journey through heavily reverbed hats and claps and a falcetto vocal that seems to hit a little late throughout the track, adding to the overall feeling of lethargy. It's a decent "5 AM, sun coming up, gradually becoming aware of your surroundings" track, but could just as easily soundtrack one of the weirder dream sequences in The Mighty Boosh. Next comes KeyBoy with "OYB" and some thumpingly deep bass hits, eerie, screeching sirens and a robust groove that offers much but doesn't quite deliver. It feels a bit cluttered, like he's tried to cram too many interesting things into too narrow an auditory spectrum and leaves you a bit mystified as to what he was trying to achieve. A shame, really, as a lot of what's there is great, there's just too much thrown at you to really be able to appreciate the whole. Finally, Ciscoe slows things down and slaps some bleepy '80s synths all over a beautiful wash of '70s disco strings. There's more than a hint of Royksopp about it, but that's all well and good…they can't have all the bleepy, downtempo-based fun after all. To use a word that belie my West Country origins; it's lush and singlehandedly transforms a fairly mediocre EP into something definitely worth attending to.
  • Tracklist
      01. Ralph Myerz - My Dream Queen 02. KeyBoy - OYB 03. Ciscoe - Elevators
RA