Bjørn
Torske: Feil Knapp (Smalltown
Supersound)
There are so many basement electronic musicians these days that it’s
easy to get lost in the varied lots of bizarre names, alter egos, aliases,
and just what’s good and what sucks. Put Bjørn Torske in
the good column. His Feil Knapp is a diverse and enjoyable knob-twiddler.
His jiggly “Hatten Passer” is what probably passes for a good
time in his native Norway. “Spelunker,” with its video game
intro, is Dig Dug gone reggae (which is awesome) and might be
the highlight here. Scratch that, at nearly an hour, the ten songs here
are surprisingly compelling and varied taking diverse instruments and
putting them into a genre pot full of house, ambient, world, and more.
You can add the cayenne pepper.
By Nick Hyman