Considering the recording venue, it is perhaps appropriate that Start should call to mind the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood. After that we settle down to a programme of gentle Frisell originals that perhaps deserve more detailed examination than their author offers here.
The well-designed Throughout and moody Three, in particular, cry out for further development but all they get is decoration by means of sighing swell sounds and pedal-controlled tonal fades. It again seems that house policy on such records overrides all other consideration.
It is a cliché to talk of ECM’s preoccupation with atmospheric music, but it does sell well, and this reviewer is beginning to think he must be the odd man out in finding it all so boring.
Discography
Start; Throughout; Two Arms; Shorts; Smile On You (23.30) – The Beach; In Line; Three; Godson Song (18.45)
Bill Frisell (g/elg); Arild Andersen (b). Oslo, August, 1982.
(ECM 1241)
