The clattering percussion that introduces ‘Charlotte’, the first track on ‘Farvefisen blomstrer (dedicated to Jens Jørgen Thorsen)’ suggests some avant-jazz effort… and then the vocals start, a clamorous headfuck of reverb and FX… and then spiralling swirls of shoegaze guitar and a grinding bass explodes, assailing the unsuspecting listener from every angle. Squalling feedback and a fracas of inhuman screams conspire to create a racket that I can only describe as utterly fucking deranged. Christ only knows what they must have in the water there in Denmark, what crazy booze they’ve got brewing or distilling, or what drugs they’re on, but Sweet Banditry – built around core duo of Danish saxophonist, vocalist and composer Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen and her husband, bassist Tom Blancarte – go beyond insane as they forge genre-smashing cacophonies of a keenly avant-garde, no-wave persuasion. New age chants hypnotise and a rash of spasmodic saxophones squeal amidst a maelstrom of stuttering drum beats. Droning doom and sludgy guitar noise constitutes the seven-minute monster that is ‘Drone War (My Life Is More Important Than Yours)’ before they really ratchet up the psychopathy on ‘Jeg elsker mid selv’ (I love myself, in Danish: sounds like a veritable orgy of self-love, too). ‘Det usynlige, lille land’ is plain eerie, and contrasts with the chaos that occupies much of the rest of the album.
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The 12-minute ‘FY SKAM JER!’ is a swirling psychedelic jam that slowly but oh so surely hips itself into a cathartic frenzy before collapsing in a heap and finally re-emerging in a wild extended crescendo of din.
At times, ‘Farvefisen blomstrer’ borders on the unlistenable: it’s unquestionably a challenging listen. But it’s worth the effort: Sweet Banditry push parameters to create experimental music with results that are unpredictable, unexpected, unusual. It’s also exciting and curiously compelling, not to mention at times plain scary in its complete derangement. And that’s a very good thing indeed.
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