Reviews RCD2026
Combining improv, abstract electronics, chamber music, a dash of jazz and enough punk aesthetics to go around, the twelve tracks on this disc spend nearly an hour confusing, confounding, and in the end, uplifting you in ways that are almost unimaginable. It is the sound of four people pushing the boundaries of recorded music, having a grand old time in the process of making sounds that honestly have to be heard to be fully believed. A joyful celebration.
Dusted Magazine (US)
There is so much to love in this album. The Norwegian all-female quartet Spunk has delivered a solid second opus, showing a commanding growth in the group´s evolution. Spunk has created itself a signature sound that remains non-confining. It results in some of the freshest thought-provoking music this reviewer has heard in
a while. Highly recommended.
All Music Guide (US) .
They are educated composers, but their unceremonius creativity kicks down all borders between pop, "art music" and noise. Here´s poplike fragments of humour and madness, parodies and weird singing, rhythms and things that can resemble "beauty". Music for people who don´t know they have become adults. Fabulous!
Fredrikstad Blad (NO)
A big step forward since their debut from 1999. Now there´s a stronger sense of shape and direction in what they deliver. There´s a lot of tension in the music, much humour and dynamics. You are taken to a landscape you probably haven´t considered visiting.
Puls (NO)
Spunk´s art is open, playful and joyously varied and offer much of what we hope, feel and believe that music in 2002 can be.
Ballade (NO)
Pippi and Spunk have a lot in common, both are fearless, playful, supercharming and capable of moving boundaries.
Spot (NO)
Spunk have really shaped up this time, but it´s still difficult to say what they sound like. The mix of humour, electronics and hitting instruments is not far from what people like Keith Rowe, Derek Bailey or David Moss have done through the years. But this is not your typical European improv music. There´s a lot to learn from this for certain timeservers, like it´s actually possible to play melodies.
Mute (NO)
Occasionally over the top, but I´m never bored.
VG (NO)
An album that simply oozes attitude; an attitude toward sound and space, to the possibilities of an improvising quartet as determined by their fine appetite for absurdity. The Wire (UK)
More accessible, more dynamic than their album of remixes, this is a delightful, highly challenging record.
Jazzwise (UK)