Here's another cassette tape which has been sent to me almost out of the blue, which is naturally very gratifying, not least because it's a fucking great tape - a compilation featuring contributions from Zones of Industrial Wasteland, Death Boys, Biskop Salutati, 3 Sfärer Överherre, the Woodpeckerz, Dom Goda Djuren, and Lars Larsson. I'd never heard of them either, excepting Lars Larsson from Cloister Crime and the semi-legendary En Halvkokt I Folie. Cloister Crime were responsible for Devilish Music for an Unredeemable, one of my all-time favourite things to come from the weirdy tape scene, and En Halvkokt I Folie seem to be Sweden's answer to Throbbing Gristle, at least in terms of cultural significance; although being Swedish they seem to have a more well developed sense of humour, so maybe that makes them Sweden's answer to Faust or summink; or maybe Faust were Germany's answer to En Halvkokt I Folie.
Whatever.
I don't really know much about the Swedish music scene, but it's intriguing that at the age of fifty-three not only am I yet to hear anything truly awful from Sweden, but the underground stuff is mostly fucking amazing, as is reflected here. The title seems to translate as Understanding Solitude and the music varies from tape collage to noisy improvisation to brooding electronics to Halloween soundtrack - here implying the possible influence of John Carpenter as much as anything. There's something very satisfying about forty minutes of the unexpected finding its way to me in 2018, and in a format which has been otherwise written off in mainstream consumer channels. I could definitely stand to hear a lot more like this one.
Availabubble yonder.
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