Just looking at the cover of this album with Oyvind Skarbø and his musical friends and colleagues dressed as a school marching band gives you a vague idea of what to expect inside. They have quite serious looks on their faces, but the uniforms are a bit ill-fitting, as if they were borrowed and not taken too seriously. They are clutching various instruments that make them look as though they will be performing a jazzy cacophony, though it might have the structure of a school band — and clearly there is going to be a sense of fun involved — but nothing really prepares you for the melange of styles that is squeezed inside.
Drummer and band leader Oyvind has been putting down the bones of these tracks for the last ten years, and here has gathered a like-minded group together to flesh them out, but with no obvious style in mind. The startling electronic outburst that opens the album is like a washing away of any preconceptions and it then blasts into an 1980s style pop beat and a trio of vocals from Norway’s Grammy-winning folk-rock band Real Ones. There is a pedal steel in the mix to push away from the ’80s vibe, but I couldn’t help being reminded of the truly irresistible “Double Dutch”, and then the pedal steel breaks into a solo after a slice of discord upsets the easygoing beat and the sweet vocals.
There is a spy theme feel to “Turnamat”, with shuffling jazz drums and outbursts from various players. The drumming is propulsive and some horns try to hold a form in place; but others rush around them, squeezing themselves into the empty spaces with solos dodging around the swarm of electronics. The electronics are like an irritant buzzing around the Eastern sax on “Pilabue”, which moves with an Americana-type pace. It sounds like something Rex would have written that has been grabbed by jazz players and scrawled over. There’s slap bass on “Four Foxes”, which continues the ’80s NY groove, but the horn parts are angular and abstract, ascending and descending at whim, losing the thread and then regaining it when least you expect. Skarbø Skulekorps is quite a rollercoaster, and the styles just keep moving and changing. Cop themes gone wild and left to an illogical conclusion, or glossy funk with a strident back-beat that draws things into a contained order. The trumpet is almost romantic on “Lysets Hastighet”, but things turn hip-hop on the moody string-laden “Kado”. It turns jazzy, but then slips down a rabbit-hole into a children’s universe complete with vibraphone that can’t help but being a smile to the face. Here and there Oyvind is given the opportunity to stretch his drummer’s legs, none more so than on the melancholy jazz excursion of “Gliploss” which, with its rhythmic tempo changes, feels like a real rush of adventure.The pedal steel reappears for final track “50 MB RAM”, and here it is more of a woodland feel, a touch of ’60s mystery with pedal steel set against wordless vocals that drift in the canopy of the trees, carefree and joyful. Or maybe it is the aftermath of a Honolulu beach party, with both banjo and pedal steel giving the listener choices in which reverie they may choose to wallow. It is a it like that all the way through the album; unable to settle on one thing, the band decide to give it all a try — and why not? The Skarbø Skulekorps are all fantastic players, all part of the wider Nordic scene, and here it is just a joyful collision that only enhances all their contributions.
-Mr Olivetti-
