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| Pitchfork |
 Lindstrøm's second proper solo album, Six Cups of Rebel, does away with both the taut sexiness of his early work and the warm yacht breezes of Where You Go I Go Too in favor of something more bombastic but strangely cloistered. The pressure here builds and builds, but rather than taking flight, tracks like "De Javu" struggle with a misdirected explosion of percussion that flattens out into a farty bass riff smothered in layers of percussion. It's bloated, lifeless, and weighed down with its own multi-tracked mayhem, a thick, wet coat of gloss dragging propulsion down to a crawl more than anything else.Excess is nothing new for Lindstrøm, but on Six Cups of Rebel he sounds lost. Synths layer endlessly and drums bang and clank-- this is some Emerson, Lake & Palmer shit-- but whatever power they might possess is lost as the clutter breeds a numbing sense of saturation. The breathing room that was essential to Lindstrøm's original charm, from the rattling drums of "Arp She Said" to the exhilarating fly-bys of "Where You Go I Go Too", is nowhere to be found, replaced by a suffocating blanket of midtempo muck. For an artist whose signature track's called "I Feel Space", it's disheartening to hear so little of it here. His last album-length effort, 2010's Real Life is No Cool, a collaboratioin with singer Christabelle, showed that his luxurious disco could harbor vocals just fine (a theme that stretches all the way back to 2003's fantastic "Music in My Mind"). But here Lindstrøm's own weak, garbled vocals are caught up in the soupy current of overdubs, strangled of momentum or melodic cohesion. Even worse, on "Magik", they're pitched-down into ugly, unnatural tones, one of those "what could he have possibly been thinking" moments made only worse by the creepy backing chorus that emerges halfway through. It's cringe-inducing, another misstep for a record that's already treading unsure ground....full text |
| Avclub |
| The greatest benefit of hindsight in music is the ability to cherry-pick the good out of even the most wonky of bygone genres. Norwegian electronic producer Hans-Peter Lindstrøm has made his name doing just that, fusing disco to a far sturdier backbone of pop-fortified deep house, and folding in bits from outliers like exotica and dramatically drifting 2001-style soundtrack music. But Lindstrøm’s third studio album flips the formula to unfortunate effect. Six Cups Of Rebel minimizes the Balearic beat for a live-band feel delving into fusion funk and cerebral prog. Fans of the man’s signature “space disco,” prepare to be alienated. It all begins innocently enough, with a glassy loop of cathedral organ underpinning “No Release” as futuristic synthesizers lift off, evoking that familiar sunrise-from-a-frozen-planet M83 sound. Then, with “De Javu,” in comes a hail of flanged sirens, fake horn stabs, and absurd percussive blasts. The song tilts between the goofier impulses of Basement Jaxx and Matthew Dear’s affected cool before discovering an anchor in the Chicago-style R&B croon laid down by its maker. (Lindstrøm's first foray into singing is, largely, a success.) From there, Six Cups seems determined to resurrect the bad decisions of pop’s past. “Magik” combines incessant clavinet soloing, cartoonish call-and-response, chopped slap bass, and royal marching music—it’s P-Funk parody. The titular track devolves into druggy laughter and a familiar live-wire sequencer warble—Crystal Method does The Wall. “Call Me Anytime” might actually be a remake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “Tank” as imagined by one of those terribly unfunky Primus side projects starring Buckethead and D-Styles. The record never recovers—how could it?—reducing Six Cups to, at best, a necessary purging of club unfriendliness and leaving listeners with the dubious hope that next time Lindstrøm will be able to apply that old 20-20 to his own recent history. ...full text |
| Seattlepi |
| Hans-Peter Lindstrom is a unique man. The multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer grew up in the boondocks of Norway. He didn't listen to dance music until later in his life. As a kid he listened to country and western, played in his church choir, and was in a Deep Purple cover band. Around the turn of the century he got fed up with music and sold all his instruments. He spent the next few years building back up from nothing, first playing guitar in the street and then buying a sampler to see if he could try his hand at dance music. His successful string of 12-inches and albums is proof that he was on the right track. His 2008 album, Where You Go I Go Too, caught the attention of people outside the dance community, and made several year-end best-of lists. That album was comprised of three long, languid compositions that slowly built over their extended playing times. Those expecting more meditative space disco with his latest, Six Cups of Rebel, are in for a shock. The two covers speak to the differences between the albums. Where You Go I Go Too is a black-and-white candid headshot of Lindstrom smiling awkwardly. Six Cups of Rebel is a day-glo composition of buildings and records; there is nothing muted or understated about the cover or the music inside. Where You Go I Go Too was understated and subtle; Six Cups of Rebel is much less reserved in its musical approach....full text |
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