With all those strange sounds that drop by this desk on a daily basis, all the noise, electronics, technoids, improvs and dronists, one could easily forget there is also a bunch of people who play weird music that upon closer inspection is perhaps not as weird. Or maybe vice versa. People like Nils Rostad from Norway for instance. He’s a man who loves instruments and who loves sounds, as the title of his latest record implies, but the outcome is not necessarily weird and alien and at the same time it is also not really pop either. It is a bit of all and everything, just like we know his music best by now as Rostad has been going for some time now. Many of the instruments are played by the man himself, bit he gets help from friends on flute, trumpet, baritone saxophone, and violin, among others. His songs are strange hybrids of jazzy tones, of folk music, of improvised music; sometimes seventies progressive rock, but played in a very naive way, which is most enjoyable. Sometimes Rostad sounds like a one-man This Heat, but fully instrumental. And if you think this would be a strange mismatch of sounds, instruments and ideas then you are wrong. Rostad keeps his music very much together; his naivety in playing as well as in structuring his songs, works like charm here. Like before Jos Smolders did a great job on the mastering and there is a fine, crisp clear sound to these pieces. It comes with a gatefold sleeve, perhaps to stay in line with the idea of a seventies record, so I was thinking, but the drawing of Rostad on the cover, as well as some of the titles, is guarantee that Rostad surely celebrates a lighter side of life. This
is the perfect antidote for an afternoon of grim music.