02 May 2019

UFFE LORENZEN – Triprapport 2019 (LP/CD Bad Afro Records)

Having released his debut Solo album back in 2017, our beloved Lorenzo is back with “Triprapport”, the follow-up LP to “Galmandsværk”! The super-informative text on Bad Afro’s Bandcamp explains it all: “Uffe Lorenzen is the frontman of Baby Woodrose and Spids Nøgenhat but for now he is recording and performing in his own name and sing in Danish. He recently finished the recordings of his second solo album in the wonderful STC studio in Copenhagen. Here he recorded seven original Lorenzen songs and a beautiful version of “Hallo Hallo Frøken” by the Danish musician Hans Vinding. These songs have turned into the album “Triprapport” due for release May 10th on Bad Afro Records.

Like on the first Uffe Lorenzen solo album “Galmandsværk” from November 2017 the new album takes the listener on a journey. Through space to an alien galaxy. To a Danish summerhouse, where a row of birch trees headbang in the wind. Inside the sacred home of a female Inuit shaman. Riding the river out and ending with death and rebirth. The inspiration for the new songs came to Uffe Lorenzen during a stay at a summerhouse in the middle of nowhere.
Uffe Lorenzen: “All the songs are written in a relatively short period of time, as I spent about 14 days alone in a borrowed summerhouse. It was in the month of September and in quite stormy weather, so the whole area was pretty depopulated. In fact, I hardly saw another human being for 2 weeks. The first couple of days I just noodled on the guitar and thought about how to get started. But as soon as that peculiar loneliness set in I ate all the mushrooms I had brought and the songs just came one by one”.
The fact that the songs have been written in a short but intense period of time makes “Triprapport” seem like a more coherent album than “Galmandsværk”. Lorenzen is singing and playing most of the instruments himself with a little help from Anders Kjærgaard (synth), Adam Dreisler (flute), Vicki Singh (sitar/tablas) and Peter Knudsen (lapsteel).
“Triprapport” has been recorded with an analogue approach. The whole album is recorded and mixed on tape which means no cut and paste and no use of pro-tools. The album is produced by Uffe Lorenzen and Anders Onsberg at STC in Copenhagen and mastered by Flemming Rasmussen at Sweet Silence. First print of the LP is limited to 1500 copies on black vinyl”…

So, this Danish journey kicks off with “Psykonauten”, a track that starts acoustically, sung in Uffe’s native language (of course), Uffe dresses his characteristic voice with double vocals and a lot of echoed vocals, the musical background dives into the Deep Psych while the electric guitar adds some acidly drenched drops to the already cloudy n’ hazy atmos! On “Alting Er Eet” we have a first class chance to experience Uffe’s intimate and very personal style (by now!), this is a prodigious up-lifting neo-psychedelic tune with an unbelievable guitar melody that can liquefy your brain instantly! The self-titled “Triprapport” is another wondrous pop-sike tune with restrained but excellent use of Sitar while the psychedelically distorted fuzzy ‘wah-wah’ effects add a trippy and kind of exotic atmosphere! “Angakkoq” is a Psych-Infused esoteric ballad creating a distinctive mood emerging a strong melancholic and full of nostalgia feeling. That same Psych mood and feelings we meet on “Lille Fugl” but this time the magnificent flute sound well-camouflaged at the back, makes the whole scene really imaginary and whimsical too! From the very first second of “Floden”, the Sitar sounds are overflowing every Human Being that is around, under a psychic acoustic-like background you’re getting a magical intense Strawberry Alarm Clock musical feeling! There’s an acute colorful Eastern-like inspired feeling on “Aldrig Mere Ned” – at least at the beginning – with a strong unique Psych-Tribal-like feel, a Super-Psych song that slowly transforms into a Psychedelicious Fuzz-a-Delic dynamite! The album closes with Uffe’s version of Hans Vinding “Hallo Hallo Frøken”, a beautiful cover ballad filled with nostalgia under a dreamy-like musical pattern. So, in conclusion, “Triprapport” is a fine Psych album that despite the Danish language it is applicable to all of you Psych-Heads out there! You will enjoy it and you will “Trip” with it! After all, those Mushrooms did excellent work! (TimeLord Michalis)