EP Review – Lindstrøm – Windings
2 min read
If you’re a fan of disco, 80s synth, and electronic music, but feel that you’ve been lacking a musical act that brings all these elements together for you, then the man you need to see is Norwegian DJ and producer, Hans-Peter Lindstrøm – better known as just Lindstrøm. With three studio albums and a long list of singles, EPs and re-mixes to his name since 2003, Lindstrøm certainly is prolific and Windings is the latest EP to be added to his discography.
Consisting of only three tracks, on the face of it, Windings would appear to be a rather light offering, but closer inspection reveals that the shortest of the three tracks, Algorytme, runs for 6 minutes. Closing Shot opens proceedings with synth drums, and hand clap percussion. An 80s synth line kicks in at around the 1 minute mark, and at about the 2 minute mark a bass-line melody takes over. And so it goes for the song’s 8-and-a-half-minutes, with a slight tweak to the ingredients occurring every minute or so.
Despite feeling a little long, Algorytme sees the synth continue to carry the melodic load, here backed by a strong disco rhythm and a satisfying cowbell hidden in the mix. Foehn features a reasonable build towards the song’s conclusion, but by the time it rolls around it’s too little, too late. And really that’s the weakness with Lindstrøm’s penchant for longer compositions; it plays into every cliché about electronic music being repetitive and boring. True, Lindstrøm’s work features progression and variation, but on Windings there really isn’t enough to form captivating songs that draw and maintain the listener’s attention.
