SEX TAGS MANIA // Bjørn Torske 'Kan Jeg Slippe?' (MANIA 11)

Unarguably, the best way to prepare umu is inside a hole in the ground.
Go find a nice flat land, preferably your mother in law’s lawn, gather friends, ask them to bring wine. You’ll need a well amplified turntable playing mania #11 on a loop.
Cut the grass using a flat shovel, four or six square pieces of 50 cms, lifting the grass with its roots and some soil, move aside. Now you have a clean area of about 1.5 mts square, dig in it to a depth of about 50 cms (come on, it will make you sweat profusely but you NEED this shallow grave to feel the magik of Easter Island’s UMU!). Make a ring inside the hole with some nice river stones, as flat and round as you can find them, about 20 cms in diameter, and in its center make a good bonfire, like in comics, some conical formation of stuff that’s gonna burn. Now on top of the hole, ground level, resting on the sides of the grave, make a bed with 6 pieces wood (best if they are two-by-four planks) like a grid, and on top of them, some more stones (in and out of the hole, two dozens stones all in all). Now light the bottom fire, the one inside the hole. The idea is that the wood bed on top of the fire will hold the stones while they get very hot, then at one point everything will collapse into the hole and you will have a bed of coals and hot stones. Rearrange the burning mess until you’re able to remove all the burnt wood and leave a nice bed of red-hot stones. Now empty a sack of clams, or mussels, or crab legs, or lobster goddammit! or all of them, on top of the stones, cover it using a prehistoric plant with leaves the size of towels (you can use cabbage leaves too). Add a layer of clean potatoes, fava beans, sweet peas, green beans (all with skin). Cabbage. Use metal pans for a layer of fish, chicken, smoked pork, sausage links… all kinds of deliciousness, ANYTHING! Cabbage. Finally, cover with a couple of clean wet cloths. Put the grass back on it (roots up). Drink and be merry and very careful not to burn yourself when you undo this pile after one hour.
See? Just like a pressure cooker!

Text by Diego Fernandez

Always a guy we keep an eye on.. Bjørn Torske delivering again some irresistible grooves with an alienating way of bringing sounds and grooves together. Kind of slow Theo Parrish house meets future afro funk kind of affair. Nice to see an artist who is not just copying others! Check
Clone (NL)

The ever prolific and enigmatic Bjørn Torske returns on the mysterious Sex Tags Mania with tribal chuggers that delicately tip-toe across the disco/house border. Slow on the build-up both tracks gradually lock into a groove that's - apparently - rather popular with Ricardo and co...
Phonica Records (UK)

Bjørn Torske representa o tipo de produtor que respeita totalmente os maxis como obras completas, não como meros excertos de algo maior. “Kan Jeg Slippe?” oscila entre Norte e Oeste de África, Nova Iorque e a nossa cabeça, um monumento ao poder hipnótico da música, banda sonora para uma realidade vodu, uma receita exótica para nos enfeitiçar com poções que deitam fumo negro (não fumo branco). A Noruega guarda ainda tesouros imensuráveis. Homens do Norte.
Flur - December 2008 (PT)

Se o seu álbum não satisfez porque não soava coeso e, mesmo na liberdade de opções, não transmitia nada de especial que não fosse quase sempre melhor dito por outros, nos maxis “Ny Lugg”, “As’besto”, “Kokt Kveite” e agora em “Kan Jeg Slippe?” é sempre perfeito. Duas, três faixas que não falham nunca, uma tendência forte para o exotismo associado a outras paragens sem qualquer tentativa de ser étnico - se soa africano, por exemplo, soa africano como se vivesse na L.A. de “Blade Runner”. “Kan Jeg Slippe?” são mais dois temas de fúria psicadélica, hipnóticos, com um groove mesmo ao lado do que é normal nas pistas de dança. Disco mutante no sentido mais puro do termo, abre as portas da floresta densa especialmente no lado B “Vond Vane”: improvisação, Martin Denny e 23 Skidoo no outro lado do mundo.
Flur - June 2008 (PT)