Songs of Norway is the duo of Aaron Moore and Nick Mott of Volcano TheBear. The two musicians actually formed six months before the formationof the Bear in 1995, though they have just now gotten around toreleasing their first album. For their debut LP Despite the Cloakon the Beta-Lactam Ring label, Moore and Mott employ their intuitionfor improvisation across seven tracks of minimal free music, utilizingguitar, violin, trumpet and assorted percussion. "Good Morning GreatLegend" is filled with atonal pulls of the bow which bend, curve andswoop unpredictably while randomly struck gongs and drums form apercussive response, of sorts. On "Miles of Beef," the mosquito buzz ofthe violin flits ponderously over Moore's senseless drums, until thetrack takes a sharp left turn into primitive scrapings and tumblingfound percussion. This willfully messy non-formula continues for theduration of the album. Sometimes, as on "Would I Witness CrustaceanEvolve," the players seem genuinely collaborative and theirconversations yield interesting results, but the overwhelming majorityof Despite the Cloak sounds disparate, as if the Moore and Mottwere completely ignoring each other, each trying to voice their ownseparate agendas. "Leopard Hairs" adds weird esoteric textures with oddwhispers and the vibrating aumgns of guest Stewart Brackley, who alsocontributes double bass and trumpet to a few other tracks. DanielPadden's clarinet adds interest to "Inner Arms and Necks" which takes afew minutes to get anywhere, and when it does finally arrive, I wasforced to ask myself if the wait was really worth it. "PartridgeCarnival" ends the disc with Aaron Moore's high-speed drumming, whichrolls energetically while Nick Mott attempts to coax some DerekBailey-isms out of his strings. While Despite the Cloak mightappeal to hardcore improv enthusiasts, I couldn't be more indifferentabout it. I realize that free playing has a built-in defense againstaccusations that it lacks melody or harmonic sense, but Songs ofNorway's purposeful unpredictability is all too predictable. As a duo,Moore and Mott lack that essential spark of collaborative energy anddramatic compositional intuition that makes Volcano The Bear's music soimpressive. It's the same problem that I find in a lot of new musicgoing under the banner of "free music" or "free folk" — groups such asSunburned Hand of the Man, No Neck Blues Band and Jackie-O Motherfucker— I sometimes get the nagging sensation that these musicians justaren't trying very hard. Read More
