Trentemøller - Into The Great Wide Yonder

Written by Sebastian Huhn Wednesday, 09 June 2010 21:00

Title: Into The Great Wide Yonder
Artist: Trentemøller
Genre: Electronic / Indie
Release Date: 28th May 2010
Label: In My Room (Rough Trade)

Album Review

The debut artist album of TRENTEMØLLER ‘The Last Resort’, released in 2006, had many music lovers sit up with its subdued and playful electronics. It quite rightly gained favourable critics from every corner and it was just a question of time before Anders Trentemöller would return with the sophomore. For me, the announcement of the new album’s release came as a surprise at the time, but also raised extreme curiosity as to how TRENTEMØLLER would be sounding. In the following lines you’ll learn how he’s sounding on ‘Into The Great Wide Yonder’.

‘The Mash And The Fury’ has brooding patterns surfacing out of murky, dark waters, casually overrun by chaotic sounding, noisy electronics. Gradually, there are riffs fading in, like Blues riffs at times, having an ethereal hint but often lacking harmonic structures rather drifting into atonality and exploring noise clusters. A piece very edgy, yet endlessly intriguing! I was among those not having listened to the single ‘Sycamore Feeling’ beforehand, and thus kept the surprise for my first album listen. It opens with clattering samples over slowly emerging acoustic frangibility, supported by a softly pushing beat later. The voice of Marie Fisker, however, puts the icing on the sonic cake. It’s as if the song’s made for her wonderful timbre. ‘Shades of Marble’ continues on the instrumental path with an acoustic drum beat, ticking underneath sometimes complicated strokes and epic moments steeped with orchestral width, alongside shades of reflective atmospheres, making you turning your gaze back to the past somehow.

‘…Even Though Your With Another Girl’ leaves club suitable constructions by the wayside in favour of urgent moods, alighting upon you like veils yet being so thick you can hardly hope to cut through. The almost meditative calm is broken occasionally by harsh noise injections and silky string arrangements. Again this is a song with a fascinating voice, belonging to Josephine Philips. ‘Häxan’ benefits from the richness of ideas TRENTEMØLLER is crafting and shaping the rhythmical section with; the way he inserts details to remove and replace them again. Moreover, the song comes up with shimmering emotionality wrapped in colourful, melodic arrangements. ‘Metamorphis’ sees him exploring the depths of ambient music and it might be just imagination, but sometimes I think I can hear distant remnants of ‘…Even Though Your With Another Girl’ in the gloomy twilight. ‘Neverglade’, featuring the vocal talents of Fyfe Dangerfield, is of an otherworldly beauty that is almost impossible to put into words. It entrances you, takes you to a foreign place and leaves you addicted once it fades.

If you compare the sophomore with the first full-length ‘The Last Resort’, then you’ll see there’s been some significant, we may even call it substantial change going on in the music of Danish Anders Trentemøller. A shift from clearly electronic scapes towards organic, breathing entities! That change seems entirely natural and never forced. It is a major step forward for the Danish musician; especially with the decision to also involve vocalists. This is truly a fine work which has to be highly regarded.

Tracklist

01. The Mash And The Fury - 7:00
02. Sycamore Feeling - 6:06
03. Past The Beginning Of The End - 6:19
04. Shades Of Marble - 5:53
05. ...Even Though You're With Another Girl - 4:52
06. Häxan - 5:11
07. Metamorphis - 2:05
08. Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider Go!!! - 4:23
09. Neverglade - 4:33
10. Tide - 7:45

Line-Up

Anders Trentemøller
Marie Fisker
Josephine Philips
Fyfe Dangerfield
Solveig Sandnes

Website

http://www.anderstrentemoller.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/trentemoeller

Cover Picture

Rating

Music: 9
Sound: 9
Extras: -
Total: 9 / 10

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