[album review / podcast] Trentemoller’s “Into The Great Wide Yonder” (In My Room)
A couple weeks ago Danish producer Andreas Trentemoller released his second full length album titled “Into The Great Wide Yonder”. Seeing how his 2006 album “The Last Resort” is in my top 10 albums of all time, I had pretty high expectations for his sophomore release. Well, this past weekend I listened through the entire 10 track, 60 minute album start to finish and I’m pleased to report, he’s done it again. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that Trentemoller has further expanded on the musical ideas contained on “The Last Resort” by adding more live, organic instrumentation into the mix (guitars, vocals, live percussion, strings, etc).
Stand out songs like “Shades Of Marble” and “Haexan” offer a familiar, cinematic dance tone that Trentemoller fans will appreciate, while melancholy pop tunes like “Neverglade”, “…Even Though Your With Another Girl” and the single “Sycamore Feeling” share more in common with Radiohead and Mazzy Star than with Trentemoller’s catalog of underground dance tracks. It’s this very sort of eclecticism and varied instrumentation that make both “The Last Resort” and “Into The Great Wide Yonder” such engaging and emotive albums.
Aside from being a compositionally sound album, “Into The Great Wide Yonder” is also one of the most beautifully recorded albums I’ve heard in years. I still have to give it a few more listens, but my initial reaction is to put Trentemoller’s sophomore release into my elite category of 2010 albums that currently includes Caribou’s “Swim” and Pantha Du Prince’s “Black Noise”, both of which are front-runners for album of the year.
On a side note, Trentemoller recently recorded a podcast for XLR8R that contains a very interesting list of artists, including Angelo Badalamenti, Low, Apparat, The Rolling Stones, Beck, Suicide, David Lynch and The Stone Roses. Not exactly your feel good, summertime playlist, but for chrissakes the guy is from Denmark. My guess is this podcast will offer insight into some of the songs and artists that have influenced Andreas him over the years. – Sean Horton
