AN ORDINARY NIGHT IN MY ORDINARY LIFE

An Ordinary Night In My Ordinary Life is the solo debut album from Swedish keyboardist Tomas Bodin ( The Flower Kings). Unlike other The Flower Kings related projects like for instance Karmakanic Tomas Bodin has chosen to use his own name. An Ordinary Night In My Ordinary Life is also much more a solo effort than Karmakanic was as most of the emphasis in the music is put on keyboards.

The music is keyboard dominated but Tomas Bodin never falls for the temptation to show off. The songs on the album are all well composed instrumental tracks with soft sounding keyboard layers and an occasional guitar solo from bandmate Roine Stolt like in The Ballerina From Far Beyond. What a mindblowing solo from Mr. Stolt. Most of the music is either slow or mid paced but there are a few sections where the tempo is increased which is great for the diversity. A good example is the swinging part in Into The Dreamscape where Tomas Bodin treats us with a great synth solo. He doesn´t really play many solos on the album. Tomas Bodin´s music is more atmospheric than complex. A few other standout tracks are Daddy In The Clouds which is a church organ song. An instrument Tomas Bodin seems to have a faschination for. He also uses this instrument in many of the short songs on The Flower Kings albums. Speed Wizard is a great song. An Ordinary Nightmare In Poor Mr. Hope's Ordinary Life is a strange sound collage with samples while In The Land Of The Pumpkins is a great symphonic track. The ending 16:41 minute long epic track Three Stories also needs to be mentioned as the most ambitious piece on the album.

The musicianship is great and besides Tomas Bodin and Rointe Stolt from The Flower Kings there is also contributions from Hasse Bruniusson, Jaime Salazar and Michael Stolt from The Flower Kings. An Ordinary Night In My Ordinary Life does have a very similar sound to The Flower Kings more atmospheric songs which are usually the short ones written by Tomas Bodin. This is essentially an album with extented versions of those kind of songs.

The production is as on any The Flower Kings related album clean and polished. Excellent.

The cover art signals hippie solo keyboard album and that´s exactly what this is.

I must admit that I have owned this album for years and it never really excited me much but listening to the album again over the last couple of weeks made me realise that I do enjoy the album. In small doses I might add. I think An Ordinary Night In My Ordinary Life deserves 3 stars.