In his many years of music-making the world over, perhaps nowhere has Swedish composer, keyboardist, and accordionist Lars Hollmer consistently found as many kindred spirits as in Quebec. Thankfully, Montreal musique actuelle godfather Jean Derome has continued a transatlantic conversation with Hollmer in the years since Derome joined the Swede's Looping Home Orchestra back in the early '90s, as documented on the Victo label's Door Floor Something Window live CD from 1993. Hollmer and Derome have certainly kept busy with separate endeavors during the years hence, but they are back together again on 2007's Karusell Musik, and a huge bunch of Derome's Quebec friends are along for the ride this time, recording in a Montreal studio during the fall of 2006 following a pair of festival appearances in la belle province during 2004 and 2005. Top billing on the CD cover goes to the wild, unruly, and fun-loving Fanfare Pourpour big band, whose ranks swelled to 20 musicians (including Hollmer and Derome), pumping away on instruments including accordions, clarinets, saxophones, violins, flutes, guitars, mandolin, banjo, melodica, piccolo, trumpet, euphonium, sousaphone, bass, drums, and percussion. Derome, whose baritone sax is particularly impressive, orchestrated new versions of Hollmer chestnuts dating all the way back to the first tune on his first solo album, the sprightly waltz Avlägsen Strandvals from 1981's XII Sibiriska Cyklar. This song, featuring a vocal turn from Hollmer that pushes well past merely enthusiastic, is one of 17 concise little numbers -- usually in the range of two to three minutes long and nearly entirely instrumentals -- performed with high energy and infectiously good spirits by the gargantuan yet nimble aggregation. The opening tune, Ännu Ingen Pelle, first heard on 1985's Tonöga in a version with Hollmer overdubbing all the instruments, leaps out of the gate with nearly outrageous exuberance; it's the sound of a berserk brass band running amok as the composer rushes through the melody on his squeezebox, shouting encouragement as the bandmembers clustered around him ratchet up the intensity still further before the song slams to an abrupt finish.

1		Ännu Ingen Pelle
2		En Grekisk Faster
3		Änte Flöttar ja te sjöss
4		Arvevals
5		Karusell Musik
6		Inte Quanta
7		Avlägsen Strandvals
8		Skiss Mellan Brest och Segosero
9		Experiment
10		Cirkus 1
11		Cirkus 2
12		Sarasnoa
13		Eyeliner
14		Det Måste Bli Gjort
15		Boeves Psalm
16		Pompen
17		Simfågeldans