Topp stemning på lokal bar by Casiokids
LABEL: Polyvinyl Records

Usually, lyrics play a big part in the music I listen to. Bands like Los Campesinos! write obscenely clever breakup songs. The almighty Pavement frequently pen paragraphs of cryptic rhyme. Destroyer manages to challenge on every occasion with his complex diction and infatuation with dates and names. However, Casiokids is a definite exception to the rule.

“(This album is) the album I would choose to host a party with. It’s got the perfect blend of weird, foreign and fun to entertain for hours on end.”

Casiokids, hailing from Norway, sing in their native tongue. I’ll never truly know what singer Ketil Endresen is ya-ya-ya-ing about, but the music that they make is so damn infectious that I’m not really that concerned. Brilliant summery dance-pop music is the name of the game here, complete with reverby vocals, a steady beat, and just the right amount of acoustic clinks and clanks to keep everything interesting. It’s as if Sigur Rós (who are also completely unintelligible to my North American ears) sang an octave lower and were suddenly transported to the 1980s.

Topp stemning pÃ¥ lokal bar, the latest release by Casiokids, is the album I would choose to host a party with. It’s got the perfect blend of weird, foreign and fun to entertain for hours on end. The double-disc behemoth also sports various remixes on disc #2 (eight of them, to be exact), so you’ve got a reason to keep coming back.

My favorite cut off the album so far is “Finn bikkjen!” The thick bass sputters perfectly to the beat, and is a solid foundation for the playful bleeping synthesizers that wade without a care through the Theremins and vocals that seem to flood your brain. Also worth checking out is the Captain Credible remix of “Fot I hose”, which feeds my chiptune sweet tooth without straying too far from the source material. And there’s nothing quite like the ultra-sweet opening of “Grønt lys I alle ledd”, which practically slaps you in the face and yells “SUMMER!!!” into your ears.

The best part is that the language barrier is barely even noticeable when the music is this much fun.


REVIEWED BY RAYMOND CHALMÉ
RAY’S FAVE TRACKS: “Finn bikkjen” • “Fot I hose (Captain Credible Mix)” • “Grønt lys I alle ledd”
Read more from Raymond on his blog, Warm Tape.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a re-release....make sure to get the latest which includes 7 remixes.


>> Download “En Vill Hest” from Stereogum, the original + a remix

>> Download “En Vill Hest” (diskJokke Remix)

Casiokids - En Vill Hest from Kristoffer Borgli on Vimeo.