Favourite Kim Hiorthøy sleeve anyone? His work for Rune Grammofon is iconic, and has been a crucial factor in positioning the label as one of the most consistently fascinating and challenging labels of the last decade. If I had to, and some day I probably will - voter turnout in general elections is dropping so dramatically in the UK that some day soon it will become compulsory, and from there it is a slippery slope to mandatory voting in X Factor (for Rhydian, obviously), and from there but a short leap to having to make known your preferred sleeve by a certain young Norwegian designer - I would go for the twin suns of Alog’s Red Swing Shift. No I wouldn’t, I’m pencilling my X next to the chromatic snowflakes of Arve Henriksen’s Chiaroscuro. Or the blacker-than-blacker-than-black Deathprod box set. Tell you what, just take me and lock me up or shoot me or whatever you do to wimps like me these days, but I’m abstaining.
Of course, as Hiorthøy will no doubt want to remind you, whispering in your ear as you pass him outside the polling station with a multi-coloured rosette which looks like a flower being menaced by a killer rainbow, he is more than just a hip designer. He is a musician too, and keeps this side of his work distinct from t’other by releasing his records not on Rune Grammofon, but on Smalltown Supersound. Oh yeah, you would reply, and would they by any chance be of the minimal electronic genre, hmmm hmmm hmmmmmm? And you’d have to bang to rights, wouldn’t you? Well, perhaps not. His new album My Last Day is a chirpier, more upbeat, and at times almost danceable little thing. The beats are warm, crisp, and fashionably electro, but are set off against some contrasting half-heard piano and vocal samples which lend the album an element of emotional depth. It may lack a little in variety over its course, but in isolation there isn’t a lot wrong with tracks like “Winds Of Failure”, and if he sticks at it, he might yet make a name for himself, this Hiorthøy fella. (hopefully a name he can spell too, given the multiple different versions which adorn the sleeve of this).
My Last Day is available now from the Smalltown Superstore
3 comments
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December 8, 2007 at 10:38 am
Svennevenn
Best of Hiorthøy sleeves? That’s a though one. I like his minimalistic stuff too, but don’t forget some for Motorpsycho (Timoty’s Monster) and a beautiful cover for Spunk’s “en aldeles forferdelig sykdom” (Rune). My vote for best cover is Scorch Trio’s skull on “Luggumt” (Rune).
Latest Motorpsycho poster: http://www.flickr.com/photos/makarellos/2034738904/
December 18, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Colin
I do feel that if you’re going to write about this artiste, you should provide your readers with a pronunciation guide. Allow me to step into the breach: Hiorthoy is spoken thus: Yee-or-toy with a pretty much even emphasis upon each vowel. It sounds to this ear almost oriental in its ring. ‘Course I could be entirely mistaken.
December 23, 2007 at 9:52 am
Svennevenn
“Yee-or-toy” is pretty close, but the “o” in -”toy” is more like you pronounce the “o” in “word” or the “e” in “herd”. Ah we love our three last letters æ,ø,å!