Norwegianism

Little surprise that this two-man Norwegian act has connections to the likes of Ultralyd and Noxagt — Norwegianism, the duo's second release, merrily and loudly slots in with those bands' simultaneous embrace of no wave-inspired rock and improvisational insanity. Literally recorded in a one-day session, the album starts with the rumbling screech and clatter of "Daily Three" and pretty much doesn't stop from that point on, the breaks between songs seeming more like pauses for breath than discrete ending points. Occasionally there'll be a totally quiet number like "Entry Two," all soft echo and glitch minimalism, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Anders Hana plays, beats, abuses, and whips his guitar into various sonic conclusions not always dreamed of by the instrument's inventors — the occasional regular riff or melody in a song like "Daily Four" exists only to be rapidly disposed of — while percussionist Morten Olsen sounds like he's auditioning for a Pig Destroyer cover band out to wreck itself on speedballs. (That said, it's the fragmentary approach to his instruments — one second hyperspeed, the next second slow and considered, as the compressed electronic beat IDM aggro of "Gay One" readily demonstrates — that makes him all the more weirdly fascinating.) Shimmering moments of strange background ambience, as on "Gay Two" and "Entry One," only make the freaked-out moments sound all the more so, which was doubtless the intent, while the stretched out whine/drone on "Ibiza One" shows another side of Hana's work not immediately apparent elsewhere.