Rodent

Rodent: Beautiful Monster

by Matthew Wuethrich
May 25, 2004

Designer Örn Ólason's bedraggled, somewhat sinister cartoon rats adorning the cover of the pan-Nordic quartet Rodent’s debut Beautiful Monster perfectly reflect the group’s ten original, witty compositions. Cartoon characters like Wiley E. Coytoe have long been noted for their flexible ability to weather lethal accidents, and Rodent posses that same elasticity. While attending the Danish Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium, reeds player Haukur Gröndal and drummer Helgi Sv. Helgason, both Icelanders, formed the quartet with the Finnish trumpeter Jarkko Hakala and Norwegian bassist ...