Dylan Mondegreen
Album: Dylan Mondegreen
Label: Folkwit
Tracks: 9
Website: http://www.dylanmondegreen.com/

Dylan Mondegreen is the pseudonym for Norwegian singer-songwriter Børge Sildnes, who has been ploughing a productive indie-pop furrow for around five or six years. This eponymous release is his third (although the first to be released here in the UK), and it's said to be his most personal statement to date. If the music on this new album is anything to go by, Børge's stock-in-trade is tenderly emotional balladry, characterised by gentle, unassuming melodies and slickly coordinated, sweetly rich supporting textures. The latter come courtesy of the skilled production of Ian Catt (best known for his work with Saint Étienne, the Field Mice and other bands on the Sarah label). And that's where I draw the line of tolerance, since - for all that Børge's lyrics tell of real issues and their impact on the psyche, their real gravitas just isn't reflected in the musical settings, which are almost exclusively sugar-coated, candy-stripe-sickly and syrupy in their gloopy primary colours.

All very artful, yes - but this is the art of dreamy pop confection taken to its limit, which you will either love or hate as the luxuriant mini-wash of bright sounds envelops you and renders you senseless - or else resolutely impervious to its charms, making it impossible to separate, and/or respond to, Børge's thoughts and feelings in the way he surely intended. And sadly the disc's package doesn't aid your appreciation, with its nigh-unreadable tracklisting and credits printed in white on pale pink - and no sign of printed lyrics to guide you on your voyage of discovery. I'm sorry, but although Børge's clearly a talented songwriter, it's impossible to gain a true measure of that talent on this showing. Unless of course, I've gone and mis-heard it all, and it's all meant to be a gigantic, and literal, mondegreen?…

David Kidman