Todd Terje

It's Album Time

For all the career curveballs Terje has so far served up, it was always expected of him to come up with something pretty extraordinary for his debut. Still, to pull it off with such vigour is a pretty impressive feat. 

This is an exemplary dance record with scant, if any, flaws and heavy dollops of European groove.

Across its 60 minutes, there are loose-hipped lounge tracks, funky jazz noodlings, Italo epics and humid piano house stormers. All of this is stitched into such a heady trip of sonic extravagance it's sometimes hard to stop and draw a breath.

Terje’s cocky, frisky songwriting skills shine, and It’s Album Time easily clears the high bar the producer set for himself through his remixes and EPs.

For as much ground as he covers on It's Album Time, the music feels effortless, gliding from Henry Mancini-esque detective jazz to bouncy, Stevie Wonder funk like breeze blowing through the waffle weave of a leisure suit.

The hour-long record could’ve benefited from either less early material or more new. At any rate, this definitely winks at the whimsicality of the album’s title, and more importantly, It’s Album Time finds Todd Terje shattering dance music stereotypes.

Perhaps, the best thing about Terje’s sound is that he makes music that doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s a wonderfully playful quality at play that filters down to the distinctive colour explosions of his artwork.

Vocal number aside, It’s Album Time is an impressively balanced and varied record. It’s frequently excellent, and entertaining even when it feels like it’s gone astray. 

On It's Album Time, Terje spends as much time in the lounge as he does on the dance floor. That sounds like a bad thing, but walking the fine line between kitsch and genius is hardly new territory for Terje.

Like Daft Punk, Terje looks to the past's version of futurism to transcend today's numbed-out consensus beats.

With It’s Album Time, Terje’s debut full-length, this oft-touted “summer jam” maestro bundles all his eccentricities (some old, some new) into one ecstatic, hour-long blast.