Norway's Hans-Peter Lindstrom takes to the stage (if you can call it that) in Rough Trade East looking unassumingly geeky in a checked shirt and a hat that covers most of his face. He is playing as part of the shop's heavily Converse-branded first birthday celebrations and might reasonably be miffed at the smallish crowd who braved the warm August rain to be here. Fortunately in customary trainspotter fashion they all signal their support by nodding their heads as he teases the shop's none-too-shoddy sound system with some acutely melodic and brilliantly repetitive electronica from his MacBook.
Best known for 2005's downbeat disco lament 'I Feel Space', Lindstrom has just followed a bunch of other one-off tracks and remixes with his first full-length album, 'Where You Go I Go Too'. Tonight we get it in its entirety: three epic tracks all seamlessly flowed together, with the hypnotic feel of a high-speed train journey spent staring out at the window at a changing, implacable landscape. The reverberating title track (25 minutes) owes a good deal to Cerrone's 'Supernature' but is no worse for that. On 'Grand Ideas' the rhythms are more robust but the arpeggiated tinkling synths and very slow chord progressions remain the same. Only on 'The Long Way Home' does the mood change, ending up something like strange, sad lounge muzak and showing how far we've travelled. He looks relieved and gratified when he finally looks up at the end and toasts our polite applause with his (presumably cold) espresso.
Lindstrom will be back in town on Friday 3rd October, bringing some disco beats to Matter at the O2, the new club from the Fabric stable. You'd be daft not to want to come along for the ride.
Words by James Donohue. Photo taken from URBe Fotos flickr stream.
