Album Review: Todd Terje - It's Album Time

It's been ten years since Terje entered the public consciousness as a maverick DJ, producer and cultivator of some of the best-groomed facial hair in Norway. Waiting ten years to unleash your debut album might be deemed commercial suicide for anyone outside the dance community, but Terje has been incrementally upping the ante, amassing a bountiful harvest of remixes and much slobbered-over EPs while gaining considerable pull as a devil-may-care DJ.

It's clearly Terje's intention here to craft a proper beginning-to-end document rather than a grab bag of floor fillers. To that end, it's not until track five when Strandbar kicks in that listeners will feel the overwhelming compulsion to engage booty-shaking, a trend maintained as the regal arpeggios of Delorean Dynamite glide in. The way is paved, however, with lavishly decadent digital swing on the likes of Svensk Saas, which pushes the playful disco envelope to perilously camp, cocktail-jazz extremes. With ultra-suave Roxy Music man Bryan Ferry turning up to add an extra sashay of refinement, Terje's playful impulses sail pretty close to the wind at times, but he pulls it off through a combination of balance and sheer commitment. Sure there's an element of cheese, but not the unpleasant, heavily processed kind – we're talking about a cultured, deliriously tasty piece of Jarlsberg here.

A booster for anyone who feels that Daft Punk are no longer 'fabulous' enough for their needs, It's Album Time has been well worth the wait.