aaamusic | On 21, Jan 2013

Houston, we have an artist. Hailing from Norway, Nils Bech makes music in order to (according to his Facebook page) “explore the tensions between art and dance, contemporary music and pop music.” At this point in time it’s rather easy to know how to recommend this, because if the above statement made you scoff and roll your eyes, then nothing in this album is for you, and I’m honestly not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. This album, Bech’s second since his debut in 2010, could be the dictionary definition of uncompromising, mixing as it does deeply personal and blunt lyrics, evocative vocals, sombre pianos and beats seemingly cribbed from the last Radiohead album. This is essentially Anthony and the Johnsons gone trip-hop, and boy oh boy is it not for everyone, swinging between sombre piano ballads and wrong footing electronica as it does, it’s difficult to see where the fans of those kinds of music overlap but Bech clearly doesn’t care, and in the end it’s heartening that’s honestly heartening. I’d rather hear something interesting fail than something boring succeed, but even then, that’s assuming that this album fails, and does it? I hate to fail at even this very cushy job but… I honestly can’t tell.

At the very least it’s a strong album, and not in the way you might think. Bech seems to know exactly what he’s doing and has absolutely no fear of ridicule, which is odd for such a sonically fragile album, every track is built on piano, strings, a dashing of synths and a touch of programmed beats, some so subtle that they’re barely there. Everything is held together, just about, by his swooning voice that could quite easily be not enough for some. I think that the bottom line is that this is a very difficult album to truly love, but one that it’s very easy to appreciate, and strongly at that. There are flashes of inspiration, check out the second half of fourth track Breaking Patterns Part 2 (The Break Up) which is driven on nothing but Bech improvising on the piano while treated strings rattle around him. It sounds unbearable but it’s utterly spellbinding, same deal on second track When You Looked At Me (First Meeting) which is one of the few tracks on the album that properly turns up the thermostat, and has a genuinely exciting climax of glitchy beats and a staccato strings.

The problem is there aren’t nearly enough tracks that do that, the majority of them are introverted and subtle, which works on their own benefits but, like any album where a number of tracks sound similar, the points that deviate from that norm will be the most memorable. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are pretty wonderful, the elegiac, blissed out A Sudden Sickness the best example of this, but… maybe I need more time with this album, maybe I’m just not insightful enough to get much from it, but I only tentatively recommend this. It’ll make your world a much more intimate place while you listen to it, and you may fall in love with it because of it, but if you’re anything like me, it won’t stick around for much longer than that.

★★★★★

Will Howard