release date: May 6, 2002
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Mikael Simpson
label: Playground - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 1. "Faldskærm" - 2. "12 timers vagt" - 3. "Put mig" - 5. "OS2 + lidt ro" - 6. "Det er ligemeget" - 7. "Narkokys"
Solo studio album debut by Danish songwriter Mikael Simpson, who split with the highly interesting band Luksus, which also housed solo artist Lise Westzynthius who solo debuted later in the year with the album Heavy Dream (Sep. 2002).
Simpson has taken a turn from the melancholy of The Smiths and Sundays type of jangle pop into a more spherical and minimal sound of electronic and as his own producer, he's in charge of the musical direction, which may have been a point of dispute in Luksus. Regardless, internal conflicts of the former band members, all of them appear as additional musicians here on Simpson's debut. Bassist George Rune Andersen is the most frequent contributor as he's credited for bass (and / or guitar) on 7 of the album's 9 tracks, and Westzynthius and Henrik Vibskov are both credited as musicians on track #3, which has lyrics by Simpson and was originally released as a 3-track cd-single by Luksus in 2000. The majority of the tracks are composed entirely by Simpson but a few songs are credited other songwriters or musical composers. Track #2 is composed by George Rune Andersen, track #6 is a re-arranged and translated song, "It Doesn't Matter", originally written by Martin Gore (it appears on "Some Great Reward" by Depeche Mode, 1984), and track #7, "Narkokys", is a song composed by Jens Unmack.
Musically, the debut is mostly a coherent collection of songs, though a few songs point to more traditional rock compositions with bolder complexity but the overall sensation is an album with accentuated focus on minimalism and where the instrumental contribution largely is a simple foundation for Simpson's strong lyrical expression.
A highly original contribution to contemporary Scandinavian music.
[ Gaffa.dk 4 / 6, Undertoner 5 / 6 stars ]
