“Roaming in the gloaming by the bonny banks o’ Clyde” sang Harry Lauder about his “bonny lass” Kate McBride, in 1911. A century and a decade later Trentemøller is doing a bit of roaming himself and this is the first single taken off the forthcoming album ‘Memoria’, which is scheduled for a February 2022 release; his first full length effort in three years.
Funnily enough there is a Swedish Goth artist called Memoria, whose latest song was the last review I wrote before setting up Nordic Music Central. What a world of random coincidences we inhabit.
Anders Trentemøller is a Copenhagen-based indie/electronic music composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist with a huge following on social media, which amounts to almost half a million people on one site alone. But then he has been around for some time, releasing six albums along the way, the most recent being in October 2019 (‘Obverse’), garnering high scores in ‘album of the year’ lists and amassing award nominations.
The previous occasion I listened to his work, during the European football championships, a track called ‘Golden Sun’, I said you could, depending on what mood you’re in, easily hear a variety of electronic artists, from M83 to Jean-Michel Jarre yet at the same time he stamped his own style on a piece of music which is both soothing and stimulating at the same time. A track to chill to I concluded, but also to get behind your national team to, as they stage a late rally in the Euros. Which regrettably England didn’t, when it mattered.
I was intrigued to read the PR which identifies this song as ‘electronic space pop’. The previous one could have been taken from ‘2001- A Space Odyssey ‘ and there is without doubt more Jarre/M83 influence here, both of whom have been known to dabble on the stellar seas, from the moment it opens with a piercing Erasure-like synth sound that could have been created on a vibraphone and repeating three-note snare drum that gets under your skin.
But there’s more to it than that as there’s a dance, even trance element as well and a wall of noise builds into a crescendo the likes of which prompted me to think of the ‘Sensurround’ cinematic audio experience which was developed for the film ‘Earthquake’. On top of all this are the dulcet tones of frequent collaborator Lisbet Fritze and collectively they produce something which while not unique is hard to pigeonhole, almost overwhelming at times and which distinctly pushes the envelope. Roaming outside the box, perhaps.
Picture credit: Sofie Nørregaard.
Find him on –
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trentemoller
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/trentem%C3%B8ller/?hl=en
