Silje Nes - Ames Room

Casual listeners to Norwegian artist Silje Nes' debut album will be left with a mixture of bafflement and curiosity on their collective phizog. For the most part eschewing traditional song structures for experimental sound collages, Ames Room makes for an intriguing rather than essential listening experience, as each song unwinds ever so slowly and carefully, with various combinations of melodica, glockenspiel, cello, guitar, and everything but the kitchen sink adding genteel textures to rhythms played on found objects. The results can be beautifully uplifting as well as frustrating: Dizzy Street is a lusciously melodic number akin to Belle and Sebastian at their most sun-kissed, while some of the more wishy-washy material on offer, such as the plinky-plonk album closer No Bird Can, would try the patience of even the most hardened left-field sonic experimentalist. Maybe on her next album a happier medium can be struck. [Barry Jackson]