THE SINGLES COLLECTION

Terje Rypdal can be an explosive guitar player. Unfortunately, the majority of his albums are on the ECM label, which, after Pat Metheny's huge success, became known for light, almost new age style fusion. And I suspect that the label pressured their artists to fit into that niche. And that's the problem I have with this album. The musicians are all exceptional. There are some very nice guitar and keyboard (especially organ) solos peppering the album. But much of it sounds restrained, too low key.

The compositions are mostly just riffs for the band to jam on. On each track there is a short setup section defining the structure of the song, then either Rypdal or keyboardist Allan Dangerfield takes off with some nice soloing. Only in a few rare sections does actual composition come back to the songs.

I find that Terje Rypdal's guitar can make even the simplest song sound great, so I'll have to rate this three stars.