Morfar: The Skywriter
Fenêtre/How is Annie

The Skywriter, a sweet little EP from one Morten Samdal (aka Morfar), registers as a thoroughly pleasant suite of shoegaze electropop except for one thing: off-key singing which mars a number of songs on this otherwise promising disc. Morfar's laptop poptronica merges Khonnor's electronic lullabies with Múm's rustic melancholy to good effect on songs like “I Want Some Everest, Mount Everest” whose hazy folktronic creak is built from clicking beats, Casio keyboards, tinkling glockenspiel cascades, and hushed vocals. Conversely, a potentially impressive setting of ruminative piano-based electropop like “Even Dwarfs Started Small” is ruined by his anguished warble; “We Need A Winner In This Family” is similarly weakened by tuneless singing. Needless to say, Morfar's material impresses considerably more when his voice is softly integrated into a song's overall fabric (“The Skywriter Fell From a Hot-Air Balloon”). No expense has been spared in the presentation with the EP (six originals accompanied by a dreamy remix of “The Skywriter…” by Kjempetjukk Bussjåfør) housed in a picturesque case accompanied by an eight-page booklet, but next time out, Samdal might want to opt for instrumentals only or invite a guest singer to the session.

April 2006