If you count the 2005 rarities comp Catch that Totem!, this is the fifth full-length by Alog, the Norwegian duo of Espen Sommer Eide and Dag-Are Haugan. Its title is apparently derived in part from the fact that many of the tracks were made using instruments neither member knows how to play. Such an approach by these two certainly makes sense. They are sound freaks, fascinated by the emotional potential of timbre, always searching for interesting things happening inside the hyphen that typically joins the words "electro" and "acoustic", so proper technique seems beside the point. When they are at their best, they make to my ears some of the most thrilling experimental music of this decade.
Alog albums have tended to feel like hodgepodges, where the best of what was left after a long period of tinkering was put together without much thought, but Amateur seems more cohesive thematically. They're making greater use of acoustic sounds here-- particularly a wide assortment of percussion, and also a good amount of guitar-- and a few more tracks than usual feature the human voice. Silence is also more of a presence, and the prevailing mood is low-key and reserved.
At one extreme on that score is the aptly titled "Sleeping Instruments". It's not completely without sound, but you'll need a low noise floor in your apartment to hear the tiny creaks and scrapes happening far away from the microphone. Or maybe that was just my ceiling fan. "Exit Virtuoso", "A Throne for the Common Man", and "The Learning Curve" all use gamelan percussion, and the latter two make use of various guitars as textural devices. "The Future of Norwegian Wood" captures what seems to be the groans of a tree branch being stressed by a couple on a rope swing mixed with electronic beeps and the rustling of unnamable bric-a-brac, until voices enter spitting out syllables halfway between a whisper and a chant.
These are all tracks of interest, with lots of space around the sounds and plenty of time to soak everything in. But there's not much going on in terms of composition, no sense that each element is in its place for a compelling reason. In one sense there is something liberating about this quasi-random approach, in that the tracks seem malleable and open, basically tossing back to the listener whatever he or she puts in. Heard from another angle, these pieces can sound like raw material from a Matmos recording session, the scraps waiting to be hammered into shape by a record's overriding concept.
So the tracks that hold up best to repeated listens are the ones heavier on electronics, the rude bits that don't quite seem to fit with what's going on around them. "Bedlam Emblem" is cranky and abrasive, lots of upper-mid electronic squeals surrounded by halos of static, and it clomps around in an unpredictable way but it also builds, gaining momentum as it presses forward. And "The Beginner", despite its marked similarity to "St. Paul Sessions II" from the band's 2005 album Miniatures, manages to wring serious tension out of its unblinking repetition. Amateur is certainly a decent record, but those moments offering a glimpse at the breathtaking possibilities of pure sound, which made the last two Alog records so special, are sorely missed.
