It was two and a half years ago that Todd & Karen (Øyvind Berge & Ina Verdi-Ruckstuhl) were last with us, with two singles in fairly quick succession, the latter of which, ‘Norwegian Summer’, was an appropriately brief complaint about how short those summers are.
Quirky, entertaining and amusing was our verdict.
Now they are making a comeback with their eighth single, ‘WORK’, which is accompanied by an instrumental variation on the B-side entitled ‘LUNCH’. So it’s a working lunch for them. Of course, what else?
I was attracted by their description of the song being one of “Pink Floyd meets Supertramp with The Animal (presumably the one from The Muppet Show?) on drums.” That’s pretty accurate.
Apart from Men at Work it isn’t a word that crops up often in contemporary music. There’s Deacon Blue’s ‘Dignity’ of course in which the subject is “thinking about work” along with “faith” and “home”, but I’m struggling after that.
The inherent attitude to work here though is not a particularly positive one. Todd only does it to earn his pay and there is otherwise nothing to show for it at the end of the day. The only outcome is to “fade further”.
It’s a pleasant, lyrically undemanding pop ballad with a more strenuous chorus and quite listenable.
Then a little less than two-thirds of the way through you’d think that something has gone wrong with your sound delivery system or that two or even three tracks have somehow been merged into one and picked up a ‘contact broadcast’ from the edge of the galaxy too, as an extraordinary bridge/jam literally erupts out of nothing and takes the song hostage for a full minute until the basic melody mercifully returns.
I’ve rarely heard such stark contrast in a song but strangely it works and certainly doesn’t grate.
T&K are joined by several external musicians on ‘Work’ including US organist William Lovitt, young jazz-and-metal drummer Albert Nesbø Baker, and US electronica and chill-out musician Trick Knobs.
That must be a made up name? Actually John Smith? Homer Jones?
I often mention a favourite retro British TV comedy show, Benidorm, and Trick Knobs makes me think of a weird character in one episode, Wink McAndrew, a Scottish ‘entertainer’ whose party piece is to pull out a foot-long knitted fake penis from under his kilt and wave it around…until one nightt he accidentally touches an unearthed mic with it and fries himself. A trick knob that turned out to be a fatal attraction.
As our Trick is mainly responsible for that bridge though we must treat him with respect; it is electrifying after all.
And the shorter ‘LUNCH’ gives him more room to experiment still with the bridge in a version that is surprisingly atmospheric.
(Continues after the Spotify link).
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