CD: Mungolian Jetset - Schlungs | reviews, news & interviews
CD: Mungolian Jetset - Schlungs
CD: Mungolian Jetset - Schlungs
Norwegian warped disco masters hit accessible form on their third outing
A few years ago – peaking in 2007 - “cosmic disco” was a brief clubland rage. It came mostly from Oslo and consisted of calm, bearded Norwegian dudes creating a fabulous psychedelic stew of groovy house, Italo-disco, and their own ineffable proggy weirdness.
As Mungolian Jetset, together with producer Knut Sævik, Nyhus has created some of the most far out electronic dance sounds to come from Scandinavia in recent years, notably an epic rolling remix of LSB’s “Original Highway Delight” and, for my money, one of the top acid techno freak-outs of all time, Pizzy Yelliott’s loony assault on Bob Marley’s “Could You Be Loved”. Their first album was an experimental jazz affair, their second a collection of work-to-date (including the tracks aforementioned), but their third, Schlungs, is much more focused and accessible. Happily, this does not mean they have straightened out their act.
The album begins with a didgeridoo-addled tribal throb that explodes into Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (the 2001: A Space Odyssey music), and there’s plenty more off-the-wall behaviour, notably the warped percussive groove of “Shelton’s on a Bender”. There is also, however, a concerted effort to write proper songs, even if the lyrics veer into the bizarre and George Clinton-esque. The space-cadet vocoder jam of “Moon Jocks N Prog Rocks”, the kinky bondage funk of “Ties N Downs” and the straightforward Eighties-flavoured party anthem “Bella Lanay” all showcase an off-kilter world view that's now attached to music for disco hippies, weekend dance floors and even, Heaven forbid, daytime radio.
Listen to "Moon Jocks N Prog Rocks"
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