DEL
Projectionist Please Focus
Apartment Records/OHM Records

Del goes cineMad! Projectionist Please Focus is packed with cinematic references, from the CD (DEL on CD!? What's happening here...) cover wrapping, with all its pictures, to the core of their music. So, warm up the Bauers and the Cinemeccanicas, and let the projection start. Fill the silver screen.

Projectionist Please Focus is simply a brilliant album title, and on it you'll find live recordings done in Trondheim and Oslo (from Lofi-Café, Blå, Klubb Kanin, and the Eat The Rich festival) between June 1998 and December 2000. DEL used to be a trio - Lasse Marhaug (electronics, tapes, powerbook, guitar, voice, harp, violin, percussion, etc.), Kjell Runar Jenssen (drums percussion, samsa, metalophone), and Per Gisle Galåen (guitar, voice, tapes, organ, accordion, etc.) - but now it seems like Fredrik Ness Sevendal (guitar) has become a regular 4th, making it a quartet. They've also brought along some friends/guests: Alexander Rishaug (guitar, casio, Apple), Audun Eriksen (voice, theremin, short-circuited toys!), and Jon Biger Wormdahl (of Salvatore, on electronics). Anyway, first track Up Like a Shot starts the slow-mo dronery, with sampled film dialogue (right? not that I recognize what it's been taken from). DEL perform improv music from the darkest corners. Abstract minimalism. Infernal sub-surrealism. They spook, they thrill, they surprise, and they even bore, but you'll never know their next move. Their soundscapes fluctuate between gentle caresses and noisy terror. I sort of get the feeling that it's better to capture the live thing than listening to the recordings, just to get in the right mood for taking in this type of music. Because DEL challenge the listeners quite a lot. You'll not find any "verse-chorus-verse" of course, rather a floating river of sounds and rhythms. Most of the seven tracks clock in between 6 and 10 minutes, except the 23 min lament Carnival Magic, which I find a bit too, uh, "running on empty". Lash of Lust is more positively vibed, and makes more sense for me. As well as the tormented Killer's Curse.

When listening to Projectionist Please Focus I now and then come to think of this as a perfect soundtrack for Col. Kurtz and his tribal brute in the Cambodian jungle in Coppola's Apocalypse Now! Try whispering "The horror..., the horror...", and you might get an idea of what I mean.

Copyright © 2001 Håvard Oppøyen