Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas: Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas II

(Eskimo) 3 / 5 stars

The current wave of nu-Balearic certainly challenges the listener more than you might expect for a genre derided as trendy background music. So it is with the latest album by Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas. The name of either attached to a remix is usually a guarantee of quality, but here, they move further away from their trademark "space disco" sound into a realm of instrumental rock: guitars and pianos echo away, bongos patter, synthesisers hum and whoosh. There's no doubting the horizontal loveliness of For Ett Slikk Og Ingenting, and Rett Paa turns in a suitably hypnotic groove, but occasionally you listen attended by the feeling that were this the work of an American jam band called Amphibian Phungus rather than a couple of hip Norwegian dance producers, a lot of its fans wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.