The new album shows a more rhythmic attitude than before, from this experimental musician and composer. as always he is exploring new musically territory. This time with tracks he think off as pop, but that says more about his mind than anything else.
NXP will also release a split 7" with Kjetil Hanssen, tomorrow. The split release ends with a locked groove at both sides so it could be seen as an 7" album. NXP side has three tracks and a locked groove.
Review of both releases in Vital Weekly (#811);
NXP - BEAUTY TAKES OUT THE WORST IN PEOPLE (CDR by Requiem Productions)
KJETIL HANSSEN/NXP (split 7" by Requiem Productions/Ambolthue Records)
Tore Stemland's musical history goes back many years. He was a member of Asod Dvi and Psykisk Tortur in the 80s as well as various punk bands. Nekro XP was also in those the name for his solo project, later shortened to NXP. This new album is his 11th as NXP since 1984 and released on his own Requiem productions. In this album he wants to combine his various interests in creating music: "field recordings, avant-garde, rhythmic noise and other forms of music in that field", and that is indeed what he does here. The rhythmic noise has the upper hand here, and it makes that the album is perhaps a bit dated. Maybe the addition of Jim Jones talking helped that idea a bit. The use of spoken word returns in a few other pieces, and the whole thing sounds pretty retro: good lo' classic industrial music. Minimal rhythms, fed through a bunch of sound effects/synthesizers and such like, as said with occasional use of spoken word. Sometimes the variation is a bit poor per track, and it gets stuck in a few loops for a bit too much time. But the closing title, also by far the longest of this release, the rhythm is surprisingly absent and we have a fine piece of ambient drone music, and here the length works quite well. Maybe those roads are to be explored more and move away from the same what dated old rhythmic sound? Unless of course its this variation he wants so much.
There is also a new 7", with three short tracks by NXP on one side and one longer piece by Kjetil Hanssen on the other. Things have changed, after some failed 7" releases in the 80s. NXP's tracks all revolve about heavy rhythm, feeding through some effects to create industrial distortion. Since time is limited, these are all to the point. Excellent. Kjetil Hanssen is sometimes known as Torstein Wjiik, when it comes to harsh noise and is from younger generation of Norway's Noise scenery. Under his own name he creates far more interesting music, not entirely free of noise either, but certainly not HNW either. He uses samples without permition [sic] from Marhaug, Stine K and Swamps up Nostrils and with these he creates a rather lo-fi set of electronic sounds, densely layered. Perhaps a bit unfocussed. Both sides end in a lockgroove, so remixers have more fun out of this. Nice one. (FdW)
