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Reviewed by Mark Weddle [Brainwashed]
Late twenty-something Kåre Pedersen was born in Brazil but raised in Norway where he became an integral part of the local scenes in various bands, probably most notably with Kåre & The Cavemen (aka Euroboys). A year after their split in 2000, Pedersen began work on 'Sideman', his solo debut. I've learned to expect the unexpected when it comes to music from Scandinavia. Yet I'm still a bit shocked by the catchy pop and rock hooks of Kåre's tunes (kinda like when I first opened the insert to discover him holding a gun to his head). Some reference points are easy: Spiritualized / Spacemen 3, psychedelic era Floyd and Beatles, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine, etc. Anders Borne's somewhat whiny vocals are a quickly acquired taste but Kåre's (and numerous Norwegian guests) multi-instrumentation is immediately pleasing to the ear. Solid drums and fat bass guitar propel the melodic grooves as they gather layers of guitar and atmospheric swirl. Subtle production highlights like piano, slide guitar, horns, bird song and running water exquisitely enhance the moods, often building up into a wonder wall of sound. The album feels musically happy and upbeat, even in the blues of "Channel Five". Wearing his heart on his sleeve, Bortne unabashedly confronts the confusion of love on "Sunshine Blues" and "Love Report". You gotta love the organ stabs, guitar soloing and Beach Boys-styled backing vocals of the infectiously giddy "Frank Furius". "Dark of Heartness" ends it all much like it began with "Captain Trips", a longer track with several minutes of ambient decay/growth. Just another nugget from the Nordic frontiers.

Reviewed by Geir Flatøe [Aftenbladet]
Kåre João Pedersen var en gang trommis-Kåre i Kåre & The Cavemen, før han ble en Euroboys. Som soloartist har han funnet fram til et psykedelisk 70-tallspreg.

Det ligger forholdsvis tett opp til det Spiritualized dyrker og enda nærmere Spiritulized-forløperen Spacemen 3.

Anders Botne fra Whopper er vokalist på de fleste av kuttene og et knippe gjesteartister bidrar med sitt.

Ellers har Kåre hånd om det meste. Lou Reed-aktige «Frank Furius» skiller seg ut på et album som scorer høyere på stemning enn på låter. (6/6)

Reviewed by [Dead Angel]
The title is an in-joke -- he's a former Euroboy and came to Ulver's attention while working as a session man on the seocnd Kare and the Cavemen album -- but there's nothing funny about this album, which is either the album the Beatles should have made after the white album or the one Black Sabbath should have made instead of TECHNICAL ECSTACY, i'm not sure which. The kind of company he's keeping on this album should tell you something about the quality level here -- Anders Bortne of Norwegian Grammy nominees Whopper sings on most tracks, two former Euroboys appear on bass and organ, and members of Turbonegro, Gluecifer, and Ulver show up on various tracks. As for the sound, well, Kare's main focus is drumming and he's equally invfluenced by Can and Black Sabbath, so he's certainly not lacking in the range department. As with all Jester releases, it sounds like it was recorded with exacting precision, which make the nuances easily discernible. Kare calls it "psychedelic blues" -- i call it a droning superlink between pop and metal at the psychedelic intersection.

The album starts in a promising psych vein as "Captain Trips" fades in with warbling organ, throbbing tape noises, and a serious drone -- like a darker-toned version of Tangerine Dream -- and gradually morphs into a blaring pop-metal song that could have come from a Beatles album (post-REVOLVER). The drums are pure PARANOID-era Sabbath, though. "Channel Five" begins with a basic riff and a beat repeated endlessly and builds, instrument by instrument, chime by chime and drone by drone, into a ringing wall of sound. By the time they start to seriously rock the house, they have at least two or three guitarists (inlcuding Kasper Pedersen on slide), a jazz piano, horns, and backup singers all waffling away. Kare establishes a fondness for mantra-like repetition and cascading waves of sound 'n drone early on, and "Channel Five" is probably my favorite track here. If you can imagine the build of the Beatle's "Hey Jude" transformed into heavy metal minimalism with a gospel choir, you can get an inkling of why this track alone beats the pee out of anything nu-metal or top-40 bullshit is ever going to come up with.

By the time we get to "Sunshine Blues," i start to wonder if they and Cheer-Accident share some of the same influences -- this track would have fit in well (in structure if not necessarily in tone) on THE WHY ALBUM (itself a perverse tribute to their Beatles influence). This is what he means by the psychedelic blues: soulful guitar and straight-ahead rock drumming that has more in common with progressive rock than anything else. By contrast, "Frank Furius" is an agitated mechanical punk dirge somewhere between early PiL and The Fall, with startling and sinister lyrics: "My teacher sent a letter home / They wouldn't leave my mom alone / They blocked the street and screamed...." Relentless, monochromatic thunder punctuated by bursts of titanic and unpredictable noise/efx guitar provide the backdrop for the crazed singer to work his way up to roaring over and over "I'm blowing minds, blowing minds out with a hose!" until the song abruptly ends. This is the sound of growing hysteria with the line way too tight and starting to fray.... "Mission To Cure My Condition" is a pretty swank semi-funk vamp with ringing star-drone guitars, all air and light and twinkling radiance over a persistent beat. The extended breakdown is filled with all sorts of peculiar noises -- birdcalls, guitar chatter, who knows what else -- and the beat never lets up. Surreal and yummy and good for your tummy.

"Love Report" begins with reverberating ice-drone keyboards, then suddenly shifts gears -- an actual song -- a pop song! -- is superimposed over those ice-drone ivories, and when the vox appear, so does a twangy minimalist guitar borrowed from Morricone's stable of boss tones. Like everything here, it manages to be surreal and yet insanely catchy at the same time; even though the backbone is intensely minimal, with beats and other elements that repeat for long stretches, the other melodies and counterpoints from other instruments fill out the sound with enough variety to keep it from lapsing into tedium. The final track, "Dark of Heartness," evolves from a dark chant into a clattering engine of ritual possession, as a persistent beat and a growing battery of sounds and effects construct a machine of sound and energy overrun with alien strains of melody. Like Hawkwind with better sound, the sound of the interstellar overdrive harnessed in the service of dark pop music.

This is one of the best albums of the issue -- one of the best albums i've heard in a long time, period. This man (a complete unknown to me up to this moment) is a fucking genius. Just more evidence that Jester may well be one of the most underrated sources of incredibly new and different sounds -- it says a lot about them, i think, that everything i've heard from them so far is consistent with the quality of this release. I'll be listening to this one for a good while to come, seeking out its secrets....

Reviewed by [Almost Cool]
In its still-young life, Jester Records has made a name for itself by offering up a super-eclectic roster, as well as a high degree of talent. Releasing everyting from glitch electronic to skronky rock, the Norwegian label seems to delight in offering up a wide variety of sonic output. Kåre João is the one of the newest signees to the label, and once again Sideman is something different for the label.

As a musician, João has had quite a varied history. Born in Rio de Janero, he moved to Norway at a young age and started playing in bands in his teens. Starting out on bass in a punk band, he eventually moved to drums, and eventually went on to play in several different groups, including the fairly well-known Gluecifer. On this, his debut solo album (the title is a wink to having been a player in numerous other bands, yet never the lead), he produced and arranged everything on the disc and played a batch of different instruments. He also got a good-sized batch of his friends to contribute as well, and the result is something akin to spaced-out, psychedelic, British-rock (via Norway).

The disc opens with the epic-length "Captain Trips," and after a long intro of swirling guitar drones, the track locks in and doesn't sound unlike the Stone Roses mixed up with a touch of older Spiritualized (before the gospel obsession). With lyrics by Anders Bortne of Whopper, the track is half swirling instrumental, and half pop/rock single. João takes on lead vocals on the next track "Channel Five," and the woozy track nicely evokes the metronomic lyrics about apathy until the track builds into a squalling finale.

Although it's never something that's too blatant, the percussion background of João comes through even on the slower tracks on the release. "Sunshine Blues" and "Love Report" both take things down a notch, but underneath the shimmering guitar melodies on each track are sturdy, almost funky rhythms that propel things along. "Frank Furius" (sic) takes nearly the exact opposite route, though, when nearly all the instrumentation collides to form one romping track (although the "ooh ooh" vocals give the track a fairly light feel). In all, the 7 tracks and 40 minutes on the disc never really get that hard, and never really drift off too much either. Even the epic closer of "Dark Of Heartness" doesn't progress very long before a driving rhythm comes in. While the album isn't particularly innovative in terms that other releases on the label have been, it's still an interesting debut release and yet another genre dipped into by the label. (*6.5)

Reviewed by [Aquarius]
Jester (the unclassifiable Norwegian record label run by frontman Garm of the formerly but no longer black metal band Ulver) has rapidly become one of our favorite labels, what with releases by When, Ulver, Arcturus, Rotoscope, Esperanza, Bogus Blimp, Single Unit, and Origami Galaktika -- we've liked 'em all, actually! So whenever Jester puts out something new, even if we've never heard of the artist before (which is often the case) we make sure to check it out. Thus we ordered a few of this album by Norwegian musician Kare Joao without knowing at all what to expect. Turns out it's a psychedelic rock record along the lines of Pink Floyd (or even the Beta Band), Spacemen Three, Pharoah Overlord, and My Bloody Valentine. We've since learned that Kare was a roadie and sometime singer for AQ dirty rock faves Turbonegro! Some guys from that band, along with Garm himself, play on this. As for the sound, we were immediately enthralled by the "Tomorrow Never Knows" vibe of the seven-minute-plus lead-off track "Captain Trips", full of heavy psych guitar wash, echoey seagull synth sounds, tripped out guitar effects, and, last but not least, repetitive, catchy hooks. The rest of the album continues in this vein, pretty much. There's one track that's a little heavy on the vocals with backing Beach Boys style "oooh ooohs", maybe it's their stab at a Stranglers (or Strokes!) kinda song but it doesn't work that well for us in comparison to the rest of the disc, which definitely gets a big thumbs up. Hmm, high time we made a Jester section in our bins!

Reviewed by [Delusions of Adequacy]
It's no coincidence that Kåre João called this, his first solo album, Sideman. Despite playing for a band for almost a decade that bore his name, Kåre & the Cavemen, João was primarily the drummer of that avant-instrumental garage band (which also bore the name Euroboys). In the Norwegian rock scene, however, João has made his impact known, even playing a bit for the most well-known band from Oslo, perhaps, Gluecifer.

No longer comfortable being a sideman, João sat down with a computer, guitar, and assorted instruments to put together this release. It's mostly the music that's his - the lyrics are mostly written and sung by Anders Bortne of the Norwegian band Whopper. The music here is something of a mix. At its best, it's a swirling, post-psychedelic wall of sound and power, both beautiful and rather frightening. At its worst, it's more garage rock with some layered sound effects. Both styles are explored here, but there's no doubt that João's most unique sound structures are in the former, more trippy mix of layered guitars, powerful rhythms, and sonic blasts of feedback and effects.

The album's best track is the surreal psychedelic rock of "Captain Trips" that is equal parts Pink Floyd and My Bloody Valentine. At almost eight minutes, the track is focused around layers of guitars and keys that give the song a thick but vibrant and even trippy atmosphere. Gluecifer's guitarist even makes a guest appearance on this track. Even more laid back, "Channel Five" has mellow, repetitive vocals over layers of often warbling, wailing guitars in the background and a light, peaceful rhythm to contrast. João throws everything into the song, from horns to keys and guitars, and on this track it works. On other songs, it's less effective, creating a distracting buzz on the mellow "Sunshine Blues" and "Love Report," which is a bit too psychedelic for its own good.

Listed as the potential hit, "Frank Furius" (sic) is the most catchy song here, but it's by no means the best. Instead, it resembles something of the quirky nature of a Lou Reed song and merely provides a nice break-up of the album. Rather, the songs that succeed the most are the more experimental tracks, like "Captain Trips," the mostly instrumental psychedelic romp of "Mission to Cure My Condition," and the closing "Dark of Heartness," which is a fantastic swirling track of soaring guitar lines and moody vocals.

Sideman is extremely accessible for coming from around the world. Sounding a bit more British than Norwegian, the songs here are quite intriguing. At times, João combines enough guitar, synth, and effects to create a brilliant array of rock and soul, yet at others he falls back into comfortable rock boundaries. Still, for making the step to a solo album, this one is a good one, and it shows much potential for an ambitious career on his own.

Reviewed by [Holterdipolter Empfehlung]
Achtung - Pop ohne Widerhaken, dafür mit Nebenwirkungen! Doch zu spät: das Debut von Kåre João dreht sich bereits im Player, und schon ist es um den ahnungslosen Hörer geschehen. Bevor er begreift, was geschieht, befindet er sich im Wunderland der Pop-Musik wieder, welches so abartig schillert, dass ich einfach mal davon ausgehe, dass dieses Album wahrscheinlich allen Holterdipolter-Schreibern gefallen würde, was ich ansonsten von nichts und niemandem behaupten kann. Das macht mir Angst: darf Musik so aalglatt, so verführerisch, so arglos, so hinterhältig einschmeichelnd sein? Ob man will oder nicht: man muss dem Typen, der auf dem dämlichen Cover einer Wasserleiche in Sachen Hässlichkeit in nichts nachsteht, zugestehen, dass er mit simpelster Instrumentierung Melodien zaubert, die an die Klasse der Beatles heran reichen. Irgendwie passt alles zusammen: légèrer Gesang, nette und belanglose Melodien, eine Beschwingtheit, die musikalisch durch kleine Taschenspieler-Tricks nicht unaufdringlicher inszeniert werden könnte - fertig ist der Gute-Laune-Mix, mit dem selbst das Bügeln Spaß macht! (was andeuten soll, dass mit dieser Platte wirklich etwas nicht stimmen kann) Die Plattenfirma bemüht sich, die Musik als eine Art "Blues der Neuzeit" an zu preisen, was durch Ähnlichkeit in der Melodieführung mit dem jungen Eric Clapton und den sanften Stücken von Atomic Rooster durchaus okay ist, allerdings zeichnet sich ja selbst der Blues durch eine gewisse Härte aus, die Herrn João jedoch vollkommen abgeht. Wer allerdings schon den Opener "Captain Trips" nennt, führt offensichtlich Böses im Schilde... Ärger mit der Mafia ist ab Lied Numero Zwo, "Channel Five" vorprogrammiert, denn diese psyyyyychedeeeeelischen Melodien führen weiteren Drogenkonsum ad absurdum. "Frank Furius" bekommt eine Auszeichnung für ein bis dato nicht gekanntes Maß an Naivität und "Love Report" stellt den Höhepunkt des "Schlag"zeug-Streichelns dar. Zahlreiche Gastmusiker werden auf dem Sleeve genannt, fallen aber auch bei näherem Hinhören nicht auf. Wer vierzig Minuten totale Entspannung sucht, der sollte sich dieses Album ganz hektisch bestellen!

Fazit: Wäre die Wasserleiche ein wenig hübscher, VME zumindest im Hinblick auf Deutschland nicht ein grotesk schlechter Vertrieb und Viva auf der Höhe musikalischer Zeitlosigkeit, dann wäre die Welt vor der Dauerberieslung durch den Pistolenhelden kaum zu retten! (Thor)