RØSIGNAL - Bodies
Self release
Jakob Lauritsen: Rhodes, synth; Henrik Lauritsen: electric bass, bass synth; Jonas Moller Andreason: drums, percussion; Nikolaj Bugge: electric guitar, acoustic guitar; Anders Boll: synth; Frederik Sakham: double bass
Recorded 2019 by Anders Boll in Aarhus
This album follows the well received ‘Sun spots’ from a couple of years ago. The track-list of this album reads as follows: ‘Gaze / at the stars / ask all your / 1977 / cryptic / questions that / nobody / answers’ – 8 songs of different lengths and tonal combinations that combine into a something that seems to makes sense but is difficult to parse. From the press release, Bugge says “…we wanted to emphasize that we look at the music as a whole, where everything is connected. Sure, the songs are fine on their own, but when you piece them together, they become even stronger. Just like the titles...” In the opening bars of the ‘Gaze’ a shuffling drum pattern is washed with synth sounds, and then about halfway through a fuzz-laden, repetitive guitar riff disrupts the pattern and forces an increase in tempo. The song, in effect, is ripped in two by the arrival of the guitar – so, sometimes, the pieces are about pulling apart as much as joining together, to reveal how the music works. The band’s name, røsignal, translates as ‘smoke signal’, which is fitting for the type of music they make, with its shifting synth sounds behind some very well constructed tunes. Sometimes the tunes come from the guitar lines, others from the bass lines (especially the looping hypnotic line in ‘Cryptic’, track 5), or from synths, and the moving back and forward from one to the other is neatly managed (particularly on the closing track, ‘Answers’, which has the definite sense that there is a vocal line waiting to be added).
The combination of instruments and many of the synth sounds produces music that feels deliberately old-school. For this listener, much of this brought memories of European synth bands (particularly from Germany and Italy in the 1980s) and from film-scores composed by, say, Vangelis or Sakamoto. All of which made me wonder about the choice of ‘1977’ as one of the titles – nothing in the press release tells me, so I will simply note that this was the year that Bowie released two of his Berlin trilogy albums, with their B-sides heavily laden with the electronic that Eno had been working on in Germany. Not that this album reflects either the sound or the dramatic tension of these recordings. If anything, the tracks here have a lightness in the melodies, although this is always accompanied by slightly sinister background sounds and buoyed by indie rock rhythms.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Self release
Jakob Lauritsen: Rhodes, synth; Henrik Lauritsen: electric bass, bass synth; Jonas Moller Andreason: drums, percussion; Nikolaj Bugge: electric guitar, acoustic guitar; Anders Boll: synth; Frederik Sakham: double bass
Recorded 2019 by Anders Boll in Aarhus
This album follows the well received ‘Sun spots’ from a couple of years ago. The track-list of this album reads as follows: ‘Gaze / at the stars / ask all your / 1977 / cryptic / questions that / nobody / answers’ – 8 songs of different lengths and tonal combinations that combine into a something that seems to makes sense but is difficult to parse. From the press release, Bugge says “…we wanted to emphasize that we look at the music as a whole, where everything is connected. Sure, the songs are fine on their own, but when you piece them together, they become even stronger. Just like the titles...” In the opening bars of the ‘Gaze’ a shuffling drum pattern is washed with synth sounds, and then about halfway through a fuzz-laden, repetitive guitar riff disrupts the pattern and forces an increase in tempo. The song, in effect, is ripped in two by the arrival of the guitar – so, sometimes, the pieces are about pulling apart as much as joining together, to reveal how the music works. The band’s name, røsignal, translates as ‘smoke signal’, which is fitting for the type of music they make, with its shifting synth sounds behind some very well constructed tunes. Sometimes the tunes come from the guitar lines, others from the bass lines (especially the looping hypnotic line in ‘Cryptic’, track 5), or from synths, and the moving back and forward from one to the other is neatly managed (particularly on the closing track, ‘Answers’, which has the definite sense that there is a vocal line waiting to be added).
The combination of instruments and many of the synth sounds produces music that feels deliberately old-school. For this listener, much of this brought memories of European synth bands (particularly from Germany and Italy in the 1980s) and from film-scores composed by, say, Vangelis or Sakamoto. All of which made me wonder about the choice of ‘1977’ as one of the titles – nothing in the press release tells me, so I will simply note that this was the year that Bowie released two of his Berlin trilogy albums, with their B-sides heavily laden with the electronic that Eno had been working on in Germany. Not that this album reflects either the sound or the dramatic tension of these recordings. If anything, the tracks here have a lightness in the melodies, although this is always accompanied by slightly sinister background sounds and buoyed by indie rock rhythms.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
