ZAMLA MAMMAZ MANNA

1. "Five Single Combats" (5:52) (8.75/10)

2. "Ventilation Calculation" (5:05) a top three composition on the album because of the balanced contributions of all of the instruments and fairly decent recording and mix. Unfortunately, it sounds like an American (Allman Brothers) farewell song. (9/10)

3. "The Forge" (5:04) a solid and decent, hard-driving jazz-folk rock fusion song. I love the prominent/featured performance of the accordion. My second top three song. (9/10)

4. "The Thrall" (Live in Strassbourg and Charleville, France) (5:05) opens as if it was faded in, mid-song, during an improvisational section of another song. Weird with little substance or and no apparent cause or aim. (7/10)

5. "The Panting Short Story" (3:52) far more sedate and straightforward (and melodic) than is typical of SMM/ZMM but still complex and tight. (8.5/10)

6. "Pappa (with right of veto)" (Live in Sülfeld, Germany) (4:27) rock and roll! (on the bluesy side) which then turns into a kind of comic parody of Slavic (Russian) folk music. Interesting. The animosity between the two countries persists. (8.75/10)

7. "The Farmhand" (7:33) no tradition or institution (or trade) is off limits from the barbs of sarcasm of these guys. Like the soundtrack music to a comic silent movie of the 1920s.(13/15)

8. "Kernel in Short and Long Castling" (5:40) music to be taken seriously--due to the extraordinarily tight musicianship, broad dynamics, and effective expression of a central mood--but also due to the best sound engineering of any song on the album. My final top three song. (9.25/10)

Total Time: 42:38

There's something missing in the music on this album. Heart or soul. The fact that the band had to cull two songs from live performances is, to my mind, indicative of a band on their last legs.

B/four stars; a nice contribution to a prog lover's music collection--especially if you like unusual, often humorous music from top notch musicians.

The longer version: Where do I even begin. This albums contains of live improvisations recorded in various places in Sweden. This is close to not being music at all, most is just strange sounds or sounds that reminds me of something that sounds like a monkey walking on various instruments, making "sounds". If you do like music that sounds like this: "doiiing...WHAAAAAAAA, kaptching....(nothing).... ghaaAAAAAAA... plingeliplong.... pirdemuttkapling.... soiing... diiiiiiing..... GRAAAAAHHH." this is probably an album for you. A note to the band: shame on you. Delete this rubbish from your list and go directly to their next brilliant album "Familjesprickor" instead. Forty minutes of my life that I'm never getting back.

The music is, as always, a mixture of folk, circus music, prog, jazz, fusion, avant-garde, insanity, hard rock, intelligence, free form and beyond. The music ranges over everything, which is quite astonishing. The album is accessible and highly unaccessible. This is not music for those who cannot take musical bewilderment and chaos, yet it is structured and melodic in a weird way.

I may make it sound as if the music is not melodic, well it is. It is highly melodic. I suppose the key word is eclectic music through a bunch of musicians whims and chaotic notions. Harsh yet tender in places. Zamla Mammaz Manna is a unique group which is deserving of a greater place in music, not just just in Sweden but elsewhere aswell.

My favorite track is 'det (The fate). It is progressive rock at it's finest. The feeling is that of a group bursting at the seams. The riff is great and 'det has to be the most "proper" song of the album. It is a gem! The remainder of the tracks are amusing, yet brilliant in their own right, but it is 'det that takes the price.

All in all, I'd say it is a strange but clever album. Highly recommended for fusion fans as well as proggers of all trades, as it were. Mrvellous stuff.

This was the first release under the moniker Zamla Mammas Manna. Something happened to this crazy Swedish flock during the mid 70s, that inspired them to change route and thereby look at music in another fashion - dive into it with an altogether new inspiration. Now, while the old Samla Mamma Manna were anything but your average prog rock band, - in fact I think it's safe to say that there was nobody out there who sounded quite like them during this period in music - something did happen during their last tour under the SMM name. They were performing with a brass band and playing music that wasn't theirs to begin with. Snorungarnas Symphony was the brainchild of Swedish-American composer Greg Fitzpatrick, who also fiddled about with notorious Swedish rock figures Hansson and Karlsson during the latter part of the 60s. I personally think that things were bound to change for SMM, because what I get from these guys - what strikes me the most about them, is there inability to stand still - there will to drive on and push through. They were like human bulldozers in a world of pretty obstacles.

Maybe it was time for a change. Coste Apetrea was replaced with a new guitarist called Eino Haapala, and the group was now pushing the sonic boundaries even further. What was possible within the confines of their own music? This is one of the main reasons that they during this time were associated with the Rock In Opposition movement, and together with bands like Henry Cow, Univers Zero and Stormy Six - the quest for music without a safety net was on - music with no self-preservation - free as a drunk ship mouse dancing merrily around on the very edge of conformity - these acts had now ventured out on a ledge that threatened to break off at any given moment.

För Äldre Nybegynnare is Zamla Mammas Manna's first peep, and although it was released as a double album with Schlagerns mystik, it is still very much a debut. It's comprised of live recordings done at various Swedish live shows all through 1976-77. It is not the most accomplished live recordings I've ever been subjected to - in fact it sometimes comes off sounding like a garage job, although strangely enough, every nuance of any instrument played here is audible, which had me puzzled for a long time. Some kind of mysterious recording technique that sounds like it's done under an old correlated iron roof during a heavy storm, yet still sporting a distinct clarity from the individual musicians, which obviously must be packed up in tin foil and helium vacuums. I'm not entirely sure, but it sure sounds unique and atmosphere inducing. Safe to say that I haven't bumped into any other album sounding quite like this ever in my life.

Now whereas the old group did sound frantic and haphazard - like a freaked out circus playing far too many melodies all at the same time whilst inhabiting a slightly skewed train wreck, the tunes as such could never be accused of being jams. Sure there were sections that inspired a bit of laissez faire - do whatever you want, - BUT in essence they were highly orchestrated and well thought out pieces, even if that sounds a bit mad.

Zamla Mammas Manna on the other hand were diving head first into the unknown. It was about improvisations and loose structures based on whatever mood, sound, feel that was prevailing at the time of execution. Yeah - music of the moment, and while that sounds a bit like jazz, För Äldre Nybegynnare does not entirely sound like it. It doesn't sound like anything other than itself - to be quite honest. Take the first 2 cuts here called Urmakare(Watchmaker). Starting off with a jolly guy singing: WAHALALALHAALAWA - then seeping into a cacophonous guitar wall, some snuffling electronics from before the time of Mario Brothers, but not unlike it - and tadah! you have the intro. Then the drumming starts with it's nervous twitching along with a deep fat bass chugging along like a dirty swamp monster from your darkest dreams. It's angular, mad, uneven, imaginative like a children's fairytale and stuffed full of small segments swaying the track to change coarse for the more gritty, rocking, ethereal or everything in between.

This could be a description of the album itself. A constant battle of differentiating moods and tempers - all conveyed in notes and musical journeys that will have you reaching for your sanity from time to time. It's funny as well, but maybe that is down to the strange vocals. Man they make me laugh! Harsh screams sounding like the food of nightmares - then lingering into some bizarre yodelling textures only to end up with a hair caught in the mouth - coughing, spitting and grinning. Seriously though, this album is also very beautiful. Some of it is achingly ethereal with its mumbling screeching guitars that wander about in mid air. The long drawn out piece called Seldon In Memoriam is almost ambient, and to an electronic initiated like myself - that is certainly interesting. Still it sounds like a cartoon run amok in the studio of Tangerine Dream anno 1972 with creepy soundscapes and flickering marimba noises, a guy singing in the shower and a stagnant shaman like feel to the organs, as if these guys were trying to conjure up the god of insignificance. It is a snapshot of a crazed out band trying to do their very best not to fall in, obey and take orders. It ends in the most wonderful evil guitar riffing and drum assault - sounding like the whole of the studio suddenly got flipped over on one side, - breathing its last breaths and finally silently ebbing out in an eerie type of electronically infused epilogue.

This will almost certainly not be for everyone, and if you are one of those who think that Frank Zappa on occasion gets a bit too experimental and weird, then you should probably stay away from this outing. If you however think of Henry Cow and others that veered into the more abrasive and shapeshifting forms of music - those from the RIO movement that pushed the envelope and ran with the zebras - then you are most likely going to love this album just as much as I do. It's bizarre, off, beautifully entrancing, cartoonish, gritty, fun like hell, cheery, evil, schizophrenic, waltzing, folky, angular, heavy, corny, electronic, staccato, jump-rope like and far more things than I could ever possibly hope to attach to it. The fact of the matter is, that I adore it like Monty Python - not because I understand it, but because I'm able to flow with it - get with it like a human transformation of the river raft.

If you come into FAMILY CRACKS from any Samla Mammas Manna works, this is bound to make you feel rather strange inside. If any SMM work like MALTID was a holly-jolly band happy to dance with the chickens, ZMM is chasing those same chickens with a cleaver in hand. It has many of the SMM pieces that made that band spectacular, but this is such a demented, twisted, psychopathic version of that band, to put it lightly.

The opening piano is only the calm before the storm; ''Five Single Combats'' is very brash, industrial, almost metal sounding piece of music processed through the SMM colander. As I travel through the first half, I'm thinking, ''this is bizarre; SMM went completely deranged here.'' Hollmer uses more synths on this album than ever before, and the whole sound is comparable to Present in terms of weirdness. The tension on ''The Thrall'' is spellbinding.

''Pappa (With Right of Veto)'' has vocals on it, and the only track of the album to extensively feature them. They sound more gremlin-esque than chirpy, yet carry over the nonchalant humour from SMM. ''The Farmhand'' is the only track here that I can picture SMM doing; it sounds just like a farm. Other highlights include the metallic sounding ''The Forge'' and the jazzier ''The Painting Short Story''.

I make too many comparisons to SMM here; that's because the structure of both bands are largely similar (they share the two Lars). Disappointingly, the drumming is too orthodox compared to what I'm used to from SMM, chiefly because Bruniusson plays on only one track here. Make no mistake, Zamla Mammaz Manna are their own band, and this FAMILY CRACKS is a real treat to bestow in your musical collection.

Occasionally frantic, sometimes downright unusual (eg. blowing in bottles half way through the tune). Quite different in sound to Sammla Mammas Manna from years past. At the risk of contradicting myself, this is complex and quite off the wall but is one of the easiest to listen to RIO albums I've heard.

Crammed to the gills with ideas and inventiveness, I'm sure they could have made a double album out of this no bother. In a way, it's like a far more listenable Zappa with a lot more going on and is a lot more professional in its execution.

A super album which is completely unpredictable, cheery and energetic that only fails the perfect score by a short margin.

The music on Familjesprickor is a mix of fusion, hard rock, symphonic prog, polka, Swedish folk music and avant-rock. It's very playful but much more serious sounding than anything SMM did. Unlike SMM there are few vocals here. The most notable exception would be the song "Pappa(With Right Of Veto)". This song is the greatest example of Swedish reggae I have ever heard. It is also the only example of Swedish reggae I have ever heard. Recorded live, it's a great little tune. Another song with vocals, and one of the best songs here, is "The Farmhand"(which you can listen to on PA). The vocals here sound like the Smurfs with rabies. While the music sounds like a polka song performed by fusion virtuosos.

"The Thrall" is the most avant piece here. Parts of it remind me of Crimson's "Indiscipline". "The Forge" was later reworked as the Von Zamla song "Forge Etude". The version here is far better. Another highlight is the first song "Five Single Combats". I love Hollmer's synths on this one. The other songs are good too. This would be a great introduction to Avant-Prog. Apart from "The Thrall" there is nothing very avant here. A really good, fairly consistent and well produced album. Familjesprickor(or Family Cracks if you wish) is an album worthy of 4.5. Because of "The Thrall" and "Pappa" I can't say that this is a masterpiece of prog, so this gets a very solid 4 stars.