The Goodiepal

00:17 / 12.10.2006
David Barrington
London

â€œThe music of Goodiepal is often described as emanating from playgrounds, fairgrounds and other surreal locales, yet that image is wrong. The significance of his music is found in other places: it is the sound of death, though death in the form of play. Modern anthropology tells us that neolithic inhabitants of Northern Europe were unable to see their own faces. In a time of no mirrors, in a land of moving waters, one could only see what an other looked like. Some accepted this fate, but for others this grew into madness. Scientists have discovered that many even killed themselves, hoping that when their souls left the body they would get a glimpse of their face in passing. Hovering over the dead body, seeing their face for the first time, they heard sounds like these made by Goodiepal. They are the remnants of a form of life in which only the signs are preserved. The things for which they stand are gone, never to be rediscovered. If this is folk music, it is the music of an extinct, unknown culture. Only their sounds linger on, sounds that do not belong anymore. Worldless music, speaking only of death." - taken from a recent press release.

"Mr Scandinavia (I believe he is from the Faroe Islands) did a hell of a lot of whistling whilst moving toy planets around a graph paper. He then produced his mechanical bird which continued his whistling through the PA to sound like sitting outside on a summer's day. He then went back to his music box and whistling, now moving small bells around the graph paper along with the toy planets. To be blunt, it was terrible" - recent review of a Goodiepal live set.

The collection of words above relates to Mr. Kristian Vester a.k.a. The Goodiepal/Gaeoudjiparl/Manipal Inv/Gamers In Exile, a throughly silly musician shrouded in a smelly cloud of deep mystery.

This is true: he has a big beard & a bowl-head haircut and composes music: sometimes for his own uses and sometimes for some big clients, notably Warners (adverts for The Matrix), Carlsburg, Bang & Oluffson, Nokia, Hitachi, Statoil and Chupa Chups. His 'inverted brand series' did just that, a series of 7 inches that basically dragged the sound design work he had done for the afore mentioned companies through a scratchy bush backwards. As a live act he maybe on his own, bringing to the stage mechanised birds, planetary models and historical recordings of ancient rites recorded in magnetic stones, whilst playing a lute and whistling folk, and occasionally 'The Heart Must Go On' by Celine Dion. Pretty much everything he's done is available from his website for free download. He effectively scares people with his unique oddness.

I booked him to play at a gig I organised a few years back, I'm glad to say that although hardly anyone actually turned up, those that did will not forget the experience. Borrowing a couple of laptops the audience were invited to interact with his Maxgumtree environment.

These things are rumour: he is part of the family that invented Lego, he lives in the Faroe Islands as a nurse for the elderly, he has seen fairies on a hill in the Faroes, fell into a trance and woke up with his boots full of milk.

The Mechanical Bird

Mr. Vester's web burrow

'Circus pentium' 2003-05, Stedjelijk Museum, Amtersdam, installation in collaboration with Henrik Plenge Jacobsen

Sound Environment for Bang Olufsen for the Nordic Pavillion in Japan