Saturday, February 09, 2008

Kräldjursanstalten - Voodoo Boogie (1980)

Legendary Swedish rock trio led by Michael Maksymenko, as originally issued in 1980-81. Heavily influenced by the convoluted blues of prime-era Beefheart Magic Band, these guys played a fairly unbelievable variation on the style -- intense, full throttle guitar/bass/drum interplay with absolutely crazed Swedish vocals on top. Beefheart fanatics use to fall face flat when hearing this stuff back when it came out, and I'm sure there's a whole slew of newcomers ready for the same gust of Nordic madness. Guitarist Maksymenko went on to work with Henry Kaiser in the later 80s, forming the band Crazy Backwards Alphabet (along with Magic Band drummer Drumbo French). These recordings have been legitimately "weird" -- every single day, for 25 years now!

Buy record at Forced Exposure

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11 comments:

litlgrey said...

How can I never have heard of this before? WHO was keeping the knowledge of this from me?

Anonymous said...

I have the Reptile Asylum's previous 12" EP and the Megaphone CD which includes collects that and this, but I've never before seen the cover art for Voodoo Boogie. I've heard rumors of a reissue of Maksymenko & Kropparna, his solo recording which was intended to be the third Kraldjursanstalten album I believe. Fred Frith once said one of the most remarkable gigs he ever saw was these guys fronted by Nick Hobbs.

Speaking of crazy Swedish stuff of that vintage, You wouldn't happen to have the Mogel Ep, which was a favorite of Maksymenko's, and produced by Ferdinand Richard.

Anonymous said...

Addendum to my first comment, though it's not appeared as yet. Maksymenko was the drummer and composer of the music, not the guitarist. The guitar and bass were played by the Agaton brothers, Stefan and Thomas, identical twins and allegedly telepathic. Someone told me he discovered them playing Yes covers.

gidouille

Anonymous said...

a classic! tnx!

display said...

Lots of cool stuff here Lisa. Many thanks for this one. I've got a lot of rare Henry Kaiser (and some Beefheart) at my place. Stop by if you get a chance. Cheers,
W

Anonymous said...

Thanks, very cool Beefheartian madness! Curious what the deal is with track 5 [Ta Over (Messed Up)], and the clearly not-from-this-album music that has been messily inserted amongst the music at one point. Is the track meant to be like this, or is this some strange accident that happened when making a copy to post here?
regards
Chris

Stevo said...

I can't believe this. I justr read Mike Barnes Beefheart biography in which he mentions one band that got anywhere near justifying the term Beefheart influence. That was this lot.
I wondered how I was going to get hold of their material. Happen to come on here a week or so later & lo and behold you have the lp posted.
synchronicity?

TB said...

I have a great Kräldjursantalten radiorecording on my blog.
http://tonkraft-sr.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I would love to hear this, I really love your taste, Excellent site, thanks.

Anonymous said...

Been loooking for this for a long time but only found dead links. Thanx a lot man!
I LOVE THIS RECORD!!!

Richard said...

Gidouille - the Mogel stuff has been reissued: ReR Megacorp have copies. Bigtime; thanks for the alert to that excellent recording.
Long live Anatolij Tarasov!