This time of the year finds me gravitating more toward the weird, the experimental, and the avant-garde. Living in Chicago, I experience all four seasons, and it’s interesting how the time of year causes one to crave certain styles of music more than other times of year, and how it differs from person to person. I do know, by frequenting a lot of loathsome music subreddits, that many music fans tend to associate autumn weather with folk music like Elliott Smith or Bob Dylan (which I don’t really understand), or gothic metal like Type O Negative or Paradise Lost (which I understand much better). Others enjoy Halloween-type atmospheric soundscapes like John Carpenter’s soundtracks or minimal wave, which I also do to a certain extent. Primarily though, for me, it’s fuckin’ avant-progressive carnivalcore and Mr. Bungle ripoff music! And that’s what I’ve been listening to within the last week as I continue to dive head first into the moody chill of October.

Lars Hollmer

Accordion. Checkerboard shirt. Denim. Some sort of log cabin background. Yep, I’m sold!

This doofy-looking Swede you see on the right with the accordion (or above, you sly mobile cellular phone user) is Lars Hollmer, one of the founding members of Samla Mammas Manna, which was one of the core bands associated with the Rock in Opposition movement of the late-’70s. Did any of that mean anything to any of you? It shouldn’t! It was a movement for nerds.

Samla Mammas Manna was the Swedish answer to Frank Zappa. Technical, diverse, musically and lyrically silly, never took itself too seriously. Lars Hollmer’s solo output is similar, but with extra emphasis on accordion-driven melodies and experimental forays into European (and possibly other regional) folk dance music. At its essence, it sounds like carnival shit. It’s great.

I’ve always liked the accordion. I know it’s right up there with bagpipes (which I also like) as everyone’s least-favorite musical instrument, but people are stupid. It’s a surprisingly versatile instrument! Jazz! Do you know Koby Israelite? He makes some engaging modern klezmer jazz music. It’s good, I swear! What about Gogol Bordello or, hell, Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly? That’s punk music with the accordion, my friend. Heavy metal? There’s an entire folk metal genre, come on now. Korpiklaani, Eluvitie, Ensiferum, Finntroll, Alestorm, you name it. Indie rock? Beirut and the Decemberists. They Might Be Giants.

WEIRD AL YANKOVIC!

The accordion rules, dinguses. And Lars Hollmer sort of rules, too, I suppose. The thing about his solo albums, though, is that they’re all fragmented to the point where it feels like rejected cutting-room-floor tracks from Samla Mammas Manna sessions. It’s possible that they could be! But with about 10 studio albums worth of good material available, I can’t complain too hard!

Hollmer died in 2008. Perhaps he had his accordion cremated along with him. His friends and family probably couldn’t wait to burn that dreadful instrument!

Albert Marcœur

It’s like a Frank Zappa with Harry Potter glasses.

If Samla Mammas Manna was the Swedish answer to Frank Zappa, then Albert Marcœur is the French answer. It is my ambition to uncover all the worldly answers to Zappa. I want to find the Iraqi version, the Dutch version, the Namibian version, the Kiribatian version, etc. etc.

Since Marcœur is from France, it stands to reason that all of the lyrics are in French. And since I peaked at a second-grade reading level in high school French class, much of this is lost on me! However, his oddball music more than entertains, and his use crazy illustrated cover art, plinky toy instruments, huffin’-and-puffin’ background noises, and sardonic-sounding vocals are every bit as Zappa as one would expect from someone who has been critically appointed as the “French Frank Zappa”. To that end, I’m satisfied. He even kind of looked like him back in the day! He obviously found the appellation to be a high compliment. He even ran with it and made an album called L’apostrophe in 2005.

Marcœur’s catalog isn’t huge like Zappa’s, which is a shame because he has a lot of ideas swirlin’ around that croissant of a head of his. His music is a recent discovery for me, so I’ve only had a chance to absorb his first two studio albums. The man has also scored a good share of movie soundtracks, which is probably every bit as zany as his regular work. I’m looking quite forward to digging deeper into Marcœur’s catalog while I keep a lookout for the Laotian answer to Zappa.

Other Quick Thoughts

Industrial Music requires Industrial Hair, son.

-I’m already thinking about putting together my Top Albums of 2021 list. I might even be ambitious enough to make it to 50 this year, but, more likely, I’ll be hitting 25 and then putting out another separate list of the 25 runners-up. Who the fuck wants to read a Top 50 list by some shithead punk no-name blogger like me? The world, that’s who! Unless something comes out in the next three months that dazzles my dick right off my pelvis, I already have my #1 album slotted! What is it gonna be? ALICE COOPER?? IRON MAIDEN?? MAROON 5?? NICK JONAS?? Oh man, the suspense!

-If you’re looking for the Brazilian answer to Zappa, it’s totally Arrigo Barnabé. Check him out, the dude is nuts!

-I wish I could get into Skinny Puppy harder. It’s almost like the very fact that it isn’t 1986 anymore makes their music less creepy somehow? Being born in 1987, I got the tail-end of the ’80s aesthetic when my brain started being able to retain memories, and a lot of the ’80s synthpop had some sort of unearthly, nefarious edge to it that oddly attracted me even as a kid. Getting into industrial music in the mid-2010’s, I think I missed the boat entirely on absorbing this kind of dark electro-industrial goodness in the right place at the right time. It’s some nice stuff, though, but I don’t crave to hear it often.

And with that, this is Tom signing off with: And That Certainly Was a Post!