BYDYRA

I wasn't expecting Tusmørke to cough up two albums in one year, but they did, starting with Hinsides in May 2017, and now Bydyra in November. Here they switched labels from Svart to Karisma Records, same label that issued Wobbler's new release From Silence to Somewhere and upcoming releases from Jordsjø, Lars Fredrik Frøslie, credited as The Phenomenon Marxo Solinas provides some great use of Moog and Mellotron, so now children get treated with sounds of such instruments. The group now includes Håkon Oftung from Jordsjø, I guess I can't be too surprised as I get reminded of Tusmørke from time to time with Jordsjø¸ (as well as Wobbler and Änglagård). When I heard Bydyra was going to be a children's album I was suspicious. Here in America (where I live) children's music conjures up images of insipid music from Disney and Barney the Dinosaur. Tusmørke totally avoids that trap big time by creating an honest to god children's prog album! No reminders of Disney, Barney or Elmo here, but instead the lyrics seem to be about urban life, rising housing prices in already expensive Oslo (something that also concerns people in London and Paris, and here in the States with New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Honolulu, with smaller cities like Portland and Seattle heading that way), and apparently magic. The band included a children's chorus from some Oslo primary school. Despite the child-like approach, it's easy to see this is basically the same group that brought us Underjordisk Tusmørke exactly five years before, just you hear children singing along with the Tusmørke guys (Benediktator and Krizla share vocal duties). That's an ingenious way to introduce children to prog. The songs are all short, since I doubt children will be ready for Tales From Topographic Oceans at that age. But that totally makes since and they didn't sacrifice prog just because the songs are shorter. The folk elements are still present as before.

It's safe to say American children won't get much out of it since it's all sung in Norwegian, but for those who wonder if a children's prog album can succeed, I'm happy to say, it succeeds here. No Barney, Elmo or Disney stuff here. I've heard my share of American children's music which pretty much scarred me for life (I'm only glad I was born in 1972, Barney was way after my time). Doing a children's album is certainly a very risky gamble, and in this case it paid off well. Well worth listening to, even if you can't get much out of what they're singing due to language barrier. By far the best children's music album by a country mile!