Cloroform
Do the Crawl
bp

When you least expect it someone sneaks up on you from behind and quickly puts a drenched rag to your face. You get dizzy, falls, and next thing is to do the crawl...That's Clorofom.

Cloroform is a trio from Stavanger, the "oil city" on the Norwegian west coast. Do the Crawl is their third album (oh yeah? Well, I haven't heard neither All-Scars nor Deconstruction), and it came as a pleasantly refreshing surprise on me. Øyvind Storsund, Børge Fjordheim and John Erik Kaada have come up with a playful mixture of genres, a hybird of experimental jazz and rock, hip-hop/techno, and indeed rhythmically world music. Drums, up-right bass, and synth sounds and noises, spiced with sampled bits and pieces and vocal contributions, makes a solid album of industrial and playful moods. The album opens with the title track, which reminds me a bit of Fläskkvartetten//Flesh Quartet from their early days. "30000 People" makes me think of the moods from Brian Eno/David Byrne's early 80's album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, while the more quiet "Love so True" sounds like it's written arranged by Tom Waits. Nevertheless, Cloroform make their very own world of sound and their own atmosphere, and I guess it must be great fun to see them play live.

The rhythm section is ace, and most of the songs sounds fresh and virile, including the ability to put enough variations into the songs to keep the interest throughout the album. Do the Crawl is an exciting album. Check out the songs mentioned, plus "Popman", "Plug", and the tense closing track "Goodthings". Hopefully you'll be hooked, to crawl along.

Distribution in Norway: Tuba!

Copyright © 2000 Håvard Oppøyen