FORENINGEN TIL LIVETS BESKYTTELSE

The hippie years of the 1960s and early 70s were filled with idealists who longed for returning to the land and create communes to get back into harmony with the planet and look within. The Scandinavian nation of Denmark was no exception to this trend. As with any gathering of kindred spirits, there are always a few musicians in the group which obviously leads to music being played and ultimately a band or two is formed. Located near Denmark's third largest city Aalborg in the northern reaches of the mainland peninsula was a small hippie commune which spawned the flower-power-hippie-psych-folk-prog band FORENINGEN TIL LIVETS BESKYTTELSE (Organisation to Protection of Life).

This group existed from roughly 1970-72 and in between all those commune duties managed to record this one self-titled album released in 1971 that mixed freak folk with more contemporary pop, country, Krautrock and even a little jazz to make a rather distinct sounding album that stands out from the numerous prog-tinged folkies of the era. The lineup consisted of Susanne Hamilton (vocals, guitar), Gorm Laggen (flute, saxophone), Christian Risg'rd Thomsen (keyboards, violin, harmonica), Malthe Enevold Nielsen (vocals, guitar), Erik Andersen (bass), Thomas Johansen (percussion) however there is a kazoo on the ending track 'Folketinget' along with a bunch of silly vocal games, i swear! While the acoustic guitar is dominant, there are also traces of the electric.

FORENINGEN TIL LIVETS BESKYTTELSE was similar to many other Danish bands such as Furekaaben from Copenhagen as well as the similar Den Like Prins which contained a few of the members in that everyone was in tune in and drop out mode and spent their days reconnecting to nature and to one another which in this case allowed a wonderful batch of nine tracks to find their way into the world before it all ended leaving this most rare of Danish musical artifacts. The lyrics while in Danish are said to be extremely naive and light-hearted with a happy sunshine pop sorta feel and even though i can't understand a word they are singing, seems to resonate as such. The vocals are handled almost exclusively by the angelic Susanne Hamilton but Malthe Nielsen also offered some male utterances.

The album is quite diverse with every track being solid. 'Elverkongen' opens things up and immediately what comes to mind for me is Denmark's version of Catherine Ribeiro with the same sort of passionate pleas and spiritual supplications however Hamilton is much more reserved and never enters the psychotic Voodoo ritualistic performances like Ribeiro could conjure up. The groovy Krautish bass groove of Erik Andersen most closely resembles that of neighboring Germany's Amon Duul II especially on the 'Yeti' album which emerged the same year as this album by FORENINGEN TIL LIVETS BESKYTTELSE. While the first track is clearly in the freak folk camp, the following 'Ulster (Det glade vanvid)' throws the first curve ball and sounds like a completely different band and the tracks comes off more as a square-dancing hoedown perhaps at the local church picnic complete with a Jew's harp doing the boing-boing thing!

'Betjent Larsen' returns back to psychedelic with a catchy sing-along pop melody and a bit of tribal drumming. Perhaps this should've been the single as i could see it hitting all hippie charts far and wide and the perfect break out yer guitar and play around the campfire song! 'Illusioner' takes things back to the dream world state of the first track but with arpeggiated acoustic guitar chords and a soft flute that is sort of in the Joni Mitchell mode of playing but not so high pitched. 'Loppercirkus' is the weirdest track with atonal piano rolls, a bizarre percussive groove on the bass and avant-garde floaty movements through strange tones and timbres with rotating tempos and vocal weirdness but it's only a minute and a half long and provides the fluffer responsibilities of ushering in the eight and a half minute hippie folk track 'M'gens fortalling' which sorta sounds like Nancy Sinatra on acid with a care-free little Danish chanson of love!

'Rary' is a narrated poem accompanied by beautiful guitar arpeggios and 'Fuldm'ne - med regnbuer inde i hovedet' is back to the Amon Duul II bass driven groove only with a piano and flute exiting in their own world but adhering to a common melody. Tribal percussion breaks in and all step in line. This track is highly hypnotic with a seductive violin and a swinging saxophone part that makes this feel sort of part Krautrock, part jazz but the percussion and melodic groove is sort of like a country song. It's simultaneously quite pleasant and quite weird but the true weirdness comes at the end with a bunch of silly cacophony of the instruments and nonsensical vocal utterances and oh yeah, that kazoo! Rather Samla Mammas Manna actually. Hey, this isn't Spirogyra or Comus in complexity but this album is really well done and if you can handle a very amateurish style of hippie album only done with really catchy music then this one is for you. A true surprise actually. Not the most progressive of freak folk nor the freakiest but defiantly weasels its way into your psyche rather quickly. Mange tak!