Earlier entries of this series can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3065&p=45337&hilit=archive#p45337
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
60. Lindstrøm – I Feel Space
The facts:
Year: 2005.
Genre: Dance.
Country: Norway.
Released as a single.
Acclaimed Music ranking: #1739.
Song ranking on Acclaimed Music in the artist’s discography: 1st, the only one.
Ranks higher than Lazy Sunday by Small Faces, but lower than Boyfriend by Best Coast.
Place in the Acclaimed Music Song Poll 2015: Unranked.
The people:
Produced by Lindstrøm.
Arranged by Lindstrøm.
The opinion:
Am I the only one who… No, scratch that; I know I’m not the only one who is reminded of I Feel Love by Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder when listening to Lindstrøm’s breakthrough I Feel Space. Just look at the titles! Of course, a lot of artists could have thought of the title of Lindstrøm’s song and there are probably a lot of songs named I Feel Love that have nothing to do with the disco classic, but still.
Anyway, a lot of critics before me made the connection and its almost disappointing that I can’t find an interview with Lindstrøm admitting as much. Every time I Feel Space starts I think the seventies classic is beginning, before Lindstrøm takes it in another direction. It’s not plagiarism however, because when I actually listen to the start of both songs back to back they are more dissimilar than they appear. It is Moroder who is actually more spacy at the start, whereas Lindstrøm opens with burning synths right from the get-go. Yet the way these intro’s build towards the appearance of a similar bass-line is obviously no coincidence. It’s Lindstrøm tipping his hat to the godfather of his musical genre.
Both songs have something cosmic about them, but whereas Moroder enables Summer’s vocal to make the whole into something soft and even floating, Lindstrøm seems more interested in a traditional approach for dance music. His song is more varied than Moroder’s, changing the textures of the synths, as well as the rhythms and the instrument selection (no matter that there is technically only one instrument: the computer).
What makes the reference to Moroder so interesting to me is that it seems a tip-off for the actual intent of the song. Maybe I’m seeing too much in it (Lindstrøm has never confirmed my thoughts), but to me it is an exploration of the history of the dance music, post-swing. There is the obvious beat-driven sound of much dance music, the spaced-out free feeling of less heavy genre fare, as well as the drum-laden rhythms that date further back, towards funk, rock and African tribal music.
All these elements follow up on each-other. Indeed, several times the song seems to actually break down, but it never quit stops. It just makes way for a new approach. So the rhythmical percussions only make their appearance over the halfway point, where the synths get shoved to the background for a short while. The ambient melodies keep all the elements together. The variations come gently, so their appearance won’t be jarring on the dance-floor. Besides this isn’t actually a rave song, it’s something more ethereal. Space really.
With I Feel Space Lindstrøm updated the old disco sounds for the new generation and he is seen as one of the major figures of the genre of nu-disco. Maybe it’s just that I hear it 12 years later and that there have been so many songs that followed in its footsteps, but it hardly sounds fresh to me now, though it apparently did so in 2005. If it wasn’t for the variation I might not have liked it as much. I feel that the spacy ambience has been done better elsewhere, even by Lindstrøm himself, on Another Station for example, or in his collaborations with vocalist Christabelle on the album Real Life Is No Cool or the early track Music (In My Mind).
At the moment I Feel Space feels like just a very solid dance track to me, one that always keeps me on my toes, but never quite lifts those toes off the ground. The single was released originally with Roma E6 as the B-side and it is quite a shame that one didn’t gain more critical exposure along with I Feel Space. Roma E6 is another mix of disco and ambient, but instead of tribal music it adds no less than flamenco sounds, which sound far more fresh to me. There’s even room for piano’s and electric guitar.
That might be another hint of the nature of Lindstrøm’s music. He said himself that he started to make dance music not because he was into it, but simply because he wanted to try out how it was done. His original background is in country and rock. It’s probably this interest in many styles that informed his early experiments in the mixing of various genres, something that got a bit lost after I Feel Space. At least for that short moment we got these two songs, extended explorations of dance music’s past put in a contemporary context. Don’t get me wrong, Lindstrøm did good and maybe even better work afterward, but this remains his most innovative work.
7/10
Other versions:
As with most dance tracks there aren’t really any covers, but there are remixes. Curiously for such a famous track I can only find two of them. The Freeform 5 Remix is rather interesting, as it adds female vocals to the song that only deepen the connection with I Feel Love. At the same time the sound is heavier and faster than whatever either Lindstrøm or Moroder put out. It’s pretty great. The M.A.N.D.Y. Remix also goes for a bigger beat and shortens the song almost by half. It adds little that I find worthwhile.
The playlist: