Cloroform
Scrawl
Cloroform/Tuba

Cloroform started to get publicity for real last year with their 3rd album, Do The Crawl. Since then the Stavanger trio (songcomposer/keyboardist/singer/sampler John Erik Kaada, drummer Børge Fjordheim, and bassist Øyvind Storesund) have been playing a lot live. Small sweaty clubs, but also bigger "venues" such as Central Park, NY, NY. They've also contributed to the Norwegian film success (yes, it's possible!) Mongoland (directed by Arild Østin Ommundsen). Last week I finally got to see them live, when they launched a new record Scrawl at a packed Blå, in Oslo. And a tremendous feast (a birthday party, since Blå celebrated its 3rd anniversary) it was! Breathtakingly groovy. More rock and rap aggro than expected, but so tight, so smashing, so kool. I was amazed.

They had brought with them a couple of guests from Stavanger for the Scrawl - which contains remixes of songs from Do The Crawl, with or without the band - release evening, and both Pål Jackman (who's got his own band Wunderkammer, as well as being a film director; he made his feature film debut last year with Detektor, he also had a small part in Mongoland), and Morten Abel (long time pop star - with a certain eccentricity - in Norway, both in various bands and solo - he's also a minor film actor.) have been contributing to this album with remix versions. Jackman with a version of 30000 people entitled (yes, even the song titles are "remixed") Turdy Townsend Peephole, sounding like Snakefinger (R.I.P.) on a trip to India, or somethig like that. Neat. Abel has also made something else out of 30000 people. His mix is called The future ain't what it used to be, and is a real groovy drive. A hit (yes, it's got radio airplay). There's even a 3rd and a 4th mix of this very song: Orffilator (Karl Orff inspired...? One minute only, in chooir'n'orchestral widescreen) by Ravi, and finally Mr. Undo by Cloroform's leader Kaada. There are also two other songs, Whocares and Goodthings, with more than one remix. Deathprod (a.k.a. Helge Sten, ex-Motorpsycho) and his Supersilent colleague Arve Henriksen have both chosen Whocares. The former presents a quite whispering minimalistic mix, the latter a quite experimentally, noisy version. But not as wildly experimental as The Machines and their Let the Machines Do The Crawl (Do The Crawl, right), sounding like the grand-children of the Residents!

My biggest favorite on Scrawl is maybe True by Mart, an extremely charming electronica pop version of Love So True. Other favourites are Keepin the city safe (remix of Goodthings) by hip-hoppers Xploding Plastix (I'm excited to hear their upcoming debut), the cool Salam Irani, originally Iran, by State, and the closing version of Goodthings (as Clockowrds) by the darkly chanting Peder Kjellsby/IsIt Art?, with samples of a big and happy audience - cheering, singing.

Scrawl is really something! It shows how music works on different levels, and comes up with some really pleasant surprises, even though not everything is ace. If you hurry you might get your hands on one of the 500 ltd. edition CDs with knitted cover art! But you'd better pick up Do The Crawl as well.

Distribution in Norway: Tuba!

Copyright © 2001 Håvard Oppøyen