Arild Brøter is a rather young musician from Norway. Under the moniker Pymlico he recorded Inspirations in 2011, his first musical effort. He released this album on his own Spider House Records-label; it can be obtained through several internet websites and iTunes. According to his own website his second album is already in the making. But that's for later; let me tell you what I think about this release. It seems that Pymlico worked on this project for quite some time. He recorded and mixed the music mainly in his home studio. The main instrument on the album is the drums which he plays on all tracks. In addition he plays the keyboards, the basses and the guitars. His brother Øyvind Brøter mainly plays the Hammond-organ and the Mellotron, but also the Taurus-bass pedals. Arild Brøter is very lucky to have so many friends who master an instrument. They were willing to help on lead guitar, grand piano, saxophone, bass guitar and so on. I won't mention all the participants, but only a few that had a big influence on the overall sound, like guitarists Mattias Krohn Nielsen and Andreas Sjo Engen and flautist Hanne Brøter. This brings me to the first influence on Inspirations. The combination of the guitars and the flute are closely related to the music that Steve Hackett performed on his first solo albums. Fine examples are the tracks Pictures - part I and part II. However, the many beautiful guitar parts are also connected to a band as Camel. Listen to P.I.G and Dance Of The Kleptomaniacs and you know what I mean, but also bands like Focus and Kaipa inspired Brøter as you can hear on The Website and Summer '08. Every now and then the use of the Mellotron made me think of Genesis and King Crimson. Good examples are Constantinople, Pictures - part II and Sirius. All these above-mentioned bands were successful in the seventies and they inspired Arild to write songs in the same musical tradition. Not only the well-known names of the golden era of progressive rock influenced this talented musician. The Swedish band The Flower Kings also had a big impact on him. While listening to the album many tracks seem to be written by this band and sometimes the music appeared to be taken from the solo albums of their keyboardist Tomas Bodin. Listen to tracks like Constantinople, Dance Of The Kleptomaniacs, Summer '08 and Smiert Spionom and you'll get my drift. The eleven tracks are all strong instrumental pieces of music that could do without a singer. The excellent instrumental passages with strong solos played on the electric guitars and synthesizers are so outstandingly done that I didn't miss a human voice at all. It's difficult to mention any favourites because all are of a very high calibre. Many times these pieces gave me goose bumps all the way. The longest track Pictures - part II can be seen as the ultimate highlight on Inspirations. This epic piece contains all the aforementioned influences. The parts performed on the Mellotron, Hammond-organ, MiniMoog, Taurus pedals and electric guitars are pretty amazing creating an unbelievable strong progressive rock sound. The subsequent song was perfectly chosen to end this strong album, because Sirius is not only mellow, but at the same time bombastic. Just like the beginning Arild Brøter ended the album on his own by playing all the instruments himself. Again he showed to be a gifted musician who's able to write strong instrumental progressive rock tunes. It wasn't difficult for me to conclude that Arild Brøter alias Pymlico succeeded in recording a strong debut album that can be compared with ODDITY (see review), the debut album of Franck Carducci. This album also contained strong influences from the seventies. I would like to compliment this young Norwegian musician with this outstanding album! **** Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen) Where to buy? |
