«The five septet improvisations on Pasta Variations benefit from the unique combinations of instruments on display. Ivar Grydeland plays guitar; Frode Haltli plays accordion; Tonny Kluften plays bass; Håkon Kornstad plays tenor sax and fluteonet; Phil Minton plays (with) his voice; Pat Thomas plays keyboard and electronics, and Ingar Zach plays percussion. Whoop stop zing, rattle rattle bash blurt zoing. With the full ensemble playing together on every track, it's almost no surprise that the coherent music occurs after the improvising has filtered down to one or two musicians, with each additional member slowly edging back in. “PVD” begins with scattered percussion and whittling electronics, adding fluteonet, then Minton murmurs, and, just-like-that, quick punctures of accordion compressings and exhalings enter the scene so that by 5 minutes into it the whole band is flowing. Instead of being overwrought freneticism, it's just dense, compact with inventive communication. Haltli's accordion adds particular depth throughout these recordings, charging the sonorous sense of musician and audience alike with surprise, challenge, and reward. The saxophone pops and accordion squeals during “PVE” meet in equal riffing pleasure, blending well with the sounds of crickets at night. Thomas alternates between keyboard and electronics with magisterial aplomb, sensitive to the overall atmosphere, and possessed of ears tuned to know when the music needs that little something extra – like a squiggle in the distance, a run of keys in front of the whole ensemble's note slurry, or a pitter-patter of pianistic punctuation. This was recorded in 2002 in Oslo and Stavanger , Norway . I can only hope that No Spaghetti Edition tour farther from home, and keep putting it on record.»
Andrew Choate