They are very different discs. Whenever sports the contributions from Pete Knutsen (of Popol Ace) on electric piano and 'tron (as you mentioned), and was partly somewhat influenced by Rypdal's association with the progressive rock music of the day (as represented by Popol Ace and Ruphus here in Norway, the latter who'd go on to have their third album Let Your Light Shine produced by Rypdal, and whose leader Håkon Graf was also playing with fusion band Vanessa at the time). Odyssey, on the other hand, explores near-aleatoric approaches to group arrangements and seeks to release the notion of coherence and unity from that of duration. While I'd agree that there are uneven bits on that album, I think it works as a whole precisely *because* they stick to this formula with such a consistent direction.
Bookmarks