Todd is God

Michael Austin in his Orlando Sentinel (Florida) article ' How to take wine just seriously enough' has one of my favourite throw away Todd mentions I've seen in a while: " Dogs are funny and wine culture can still be a little too serious, even today. For the people who make it, serve it and sell it, OK. It's your business -- you can be serious about that side of it. But for the rest of us who have no obligation other than to enjoy it and simply appreciate it for what it is, let's keep it fun. Even though wine is one of our greatest creations -- right up there with language, flight, medicine and the music of Rush and Todd Rundgren -- let's not fetishize it." Meanwhile another review for the Runddans album - this time from The Age in Australia. Todd Rundgren is mercurial. In his long career he's been a guitar-shredding rock star, a creator of sublime pop, recording studio wizard, pioneer in the use of synthesisers, he's dabble...

Great Interview in Rolling Stone with Hans-Peter, Emil and Todd   Runddans means "rondel" in Danish, "circular object," and the title of one track is "Rundt Rundt Rundt" – around, around, around. Rundgren: "That's the central theme. The chords keep repeating, and it's hard to tell where the beginning of the sequence is. It's like an aural illusion where the sound sounds like its continually ascending when it's really repeating a cycle of harmonics. It's like you're tuning in a cosmic radio that keeps playing the same song over and over again – but it comes out different every time. It's like Groundhog Day. We refer to it as "the beginning and end of all music."  Meanwhile, Angus Findlayson at Resident Advisor is not totally convinced: "Runddans is an intriguing and sometimes fun experiment, but it's not quite a meeting of great musical minds. A pessimist might say that they've missed one an...

Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Yesterday's Guardian called Runddans "A deliriously camp treat."

Onion/AV Club has a really nice interview with Todd about Runddans and other things. On Runddans: "It’s totally sideways. Actually we worked on this project over the past almost three years, I guess. It started out as something relatively small and concise and then it just kept spreading like a disease. I guess we finally got to the point where we couldn’t think of anything else to do with it anymore and decided to wrap it up and release it. So it is something that is different by today’s terms for the most part because it isn’t songs."

Pop Matters reviews Runddans and doesn't really get it: "Rundgren’s presence is mostly limited to some lyric-less chiming, and even those tracks—“Put Your Arms Around Me” and “Altar of Kauaian Six String”—the songs where his participation is most apparent, yield results that are, in an actual song sense, almost negligible. Fans of psychedelic soirees ala early Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd will likely find satisfaction. As for everyone else, well, suffice it to say, drugs of another sort may indeed be needed." P.S. I gave it a listen this morning and I think it is one which will be a marmite album.