DEAR MAMMA

Usually I don't review RIO/Avant bands because I'm not a fan of the genre, but when I find an excellent band as FACTOR BURZACO or in this case SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA, I don't need a special effort, because the quality and the musicality of them, wins over any general dislike for the genre.

Last week I reviewed the fantastic SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA debut and expressed my admiration for this Swedish pioneer band, simply outstanding, uncommonly for RIO/Avant, with a privilege of musicality and melody over weird experimental sections with little sense for me, so in my very peculiar order, I will go with their last album "Dear Mamma".

In this case the situation is different; they evolved so much that the album is extremely weird, full of conversations, strange sounds very complex structure, less musicality but a great sense of humor.

From the beginning "Introduction" is one of the weirdest tracks I ever heard, incredibly cacophonic (but interesting), weird sounds and very little melodies, but still the "Je ne sais quoi" keeps the listener's interest, even if you are used to more melodically music.

I never thought I would say this but "Frestelsens Café", an incredibly weird song with almost tribal rhythms mixed with incredibly complex cacophonies and experimental to the maximum, sounded excellent to a person used to pristine Symphonic. There's some kid of magic in the sound that makes me love the track.

Never a name was better selected than "ooaajjii / ohdadaididadaidi", the first half is only a mixture of strange sounds (with percussion as background) that sound more or less than the first word of the title. The second half is more adventurous, they include conversation and funny sounds mixed with pieces of music no longer than a few seconds, a dramatic finale adds something pleasant o the song

"Langt ner I ett Kaninhal" is simply too bizarre for me sounds, babbling and at the end each and then, even a Venezuelan typical song with a dose of extra weirdness. Not my cup of tea.

"Dear Mamma Pt 1" is even more strange, the only melody I recognize is the soundtrack of the 60's TV version of Batman all created with vocals, then they loose it with incredibly strange yodeling but still in the background, some dramatic and intense melodies appear covered by theatrical screams.

"Ingenting" starts as a very unusual Jazz track, the drumming is outstanding and the melody reminds me of those 70's and 80's TV police soundtracks with a more naïve sound, don't know why but I like it.

"Forsta Ikarien" really blows my brains, I just can't describe what's happening here, you have to listen it to believe, nothing has musical sense but at the same time makes sense in this context, I don't dare to say if it's good or bad, it depends in the listener.

"Dear Mamma pt. 2" is stranger than pt 1 (If this is possible), not even Thijs Van Leer dared to make such weird sounds, it's almost a joke, a reason more to make me not understand why THE BONZO DOG DOO DAH BAND is not here, they simply hit the piano and in general all the instruments with no coherence, at.

I reached the point where the incredibly bizarre "Andra Ikarien" sounds normal, there is a strong and dramatic basic melody created with "God knows" what instruments, but it's fantastic and addictive.

"Jolk" starts with an almost cavern men shouts and all the song is basically vocal, withh grunts laughs and sounds that I can only dare to describe as a conversation between Neanderthals and a bit of comedy. I believe this time they went too far.

"Tredje Ikarien" has a very interesting but simple melody, if I dare to compare it with something I would say that it would be perfect for a soundtrack of a 1930's terror movie with Abbott & Costello, only around the middle they get interesting, but without leaving behind that tragicomic atmosphere.

"Fredmans Session 1" and "Fredmans session 2" are a weird way of closing a weird album, some melodies but a lot of experimentation.

After writing this, I know why this album has been rated but never reviewed, it's incredibly hard to describe what is happening in the album or what passed in the head of the musicians, even the three ratings reflex how hard to understand this alnum is, one believes it's an essential masterpice, other believes is good but not essential and the third one thinkks it's poor.

Giving a fair rating is also very hard, because the album has some outstanding moments but others that simply reach 10 in the 10 based scale of weirdness, I honestly don't believe the greatest Avant/RIO fan will be able to say he/she understands what is going here, sometimes the bands in their quest for experimentation go so far that nobody except them can follow the album completely, so I will go with three stars because of some excellent moment and their sense of humor.