Thank You for Giving Me Your Valuable Time

Album review

Originally released in 2001, this is the debut album by mysterious Norwegian producer/multi-instrumentalist/sampling whiz Kaada. Despite being widely hailed by critics in Scandinavia, it took Ipecac Records, who discovered the album via an unsolicited copy, for it to finally get a U.S. release in 2003. It's a fitting match, since this album has the same kind of warm, reverb-y production that Ipecac head honcho Mike Patton often favors (see Fantomas' Director's Cut), and has a collage-type avant-garde pop/rock feel that's not a million miles away from something like Director's Cut or Mr. Bungle's California. Then again, it's certainly not beholden to those influences either: the main inspirations here seem to be hip-hop (especially in terms of the production) and old American R&B and soul music, combined with an unusually user-friendly experimental streak. Basically, Kaada takes isolated samples and loops from old recordings, mixes them together with live instruments and (sometimes) vocals, and creates new songs that are essentially virtual collaborations between musicians from these different times and places. The striking thing about this album, although it's only striking once you try to analyze it, is that it's almost impossible to tell what sound is coming from what record. Whether it's sampled or live or not, or if you know all the recordings he's dealing with, knowing such things won't prevent you from enjoying the music here. For example, "Care," which pairs a guitar line from Conway Twitty's "Lonely Blue Boy" with a vocal line from "I'm So Glad You Love Me" by Juanita Rogers that proclaims, "There is nothing in this whole wide world I would do / To make you blue." Once you realize where the guitar is coming from, the "blue" reference makes more sense and resonates more; it's funny, but also kind of touching. Thank You For Giving Me Your Valuable Time is full of such subtleties, which, rather than merely sounding coy and clever, add some real heart to the album and elevate from just a technically impressive collection of sampling and production trickery into something more.

© William York /TiVo