WHO'S AFREUD

3.5 stars. I really can't talk about this Swedish avant band without talking about Lars Jonsson. He often goes by Lach'n Jonsson and he's a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and sound engineer. He owns his own label Bauta Records, as well as his own studio called The Forest. Lars was quite active in the 80's being apart of this band ZUT UN FEU ROUGE as well as UR KAOS. He also released a couple of solo records in the 80's. The album covers for all three projects have a similar black and white theme to them. And the albums from these three projects were all released on Bauta Records and all recorded at The Forest.

We get a four piece here with a sax player, and the bassist also adds sax. The music is inspired by RIO, and post punk is a strong flavour. This band formed in 1980 and released a mini album in 1983 before this their only studio album of the 80's called "Who's Afreud". They released a compilation album in 1986 on cassette only. They did reunite and release an album in 2019 that I haven't heard. The music here is often catchy and uptempo, with plenty of humour. I would think that SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA were a big influence.

We get seven tracks per side with the second side being a side long suite broken down into seven parts. The liner notes have the lyrics for this suite translated into english and titled "Seven Sleepers Of Ephesus". As far as side one goes my favourite is that closer "Sken Av Alg". It has this catchy rhythm with horns over top along with strings and vocals. The intro for it is quite atmospheric. As far as the side long suite goes, I like a couple of tracks including "Tid Bredvid" for the depth of sound thanks to the bass. Vocals and whistling follow. Lastly "Ater Uppstandelse" rounds out my top three. This one has multi-vocals, pulsating organ and drums standing out.

All in all a pretty good album but I get why Lars was more focussed on UR KAOS after this release. And in my opinion the best thing that Lars is on is that final release from UR KAOS in 1999, a masterpiece of avant. "Who's Afreud" is good, but not 4 stars good in my musical world.