It's not often I'm lost for words. But then it's not often I hear an album like this. Often, singles compilations represent the band's most commercial output, material selected as the lure to the album. It's common, of course, for singles to be not entirely representative of the albums they're lifted from: I'm thinking of singles like 'The Hanging Garden' by The Cure, which while hardly an uplifting pop tune, is incongruously accessible in comparison to the remainder of 'Faith'. Then, of course, there are bands like The Smiths, who had an outstanding capacity for knocking out perfect pop singles. Many punk bands, too, were more geared toward the single than album format: those concise statements encapsulated the ethos perfectly: over the course of a full album, things could become diluted or lose direction and momentum.
The point is that however you look at it, a band's singles output is extremely telling, even if it isn't entirely representative.
I've no idea how representative ' Meiningslaust Oppgulp' is of the overall work of Moha! but holy crap! It's a riot of noise, explosions of discordant racket, feedback and chaotic percussion, shouting and all sorts of chaos. It's such a blizzard of sound that it's nigh on impossible to get a handle on any of it. The second track, 'eg blei sogen av ein atterganger', which originally appeared on a split 10” in 2009, runs for a full eleven minutes, and is the sound of civilisation not so much collapsing, as being blown to smithereens in a succession of unpredictably-timed and barely coordinated detonations.
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The reward to making it through the aural apocalypse is more of the same: another eight tracks more, in fact. Like a fire in a firework factory, everything's going off at once and shooting in all directions. The effect is quite overwhelming, and by the time 'flisespiking / lyd med tenner / mjol di eiga kake' sizzles to a stuttering, spasmodic halt, the altogether quieter 'Untitled (8 tommer B)' and uncredited bonus track come as something of a relief.
I can't sat that 'Meiningslaust Oppgulp' makes for an etirely enjoyable listening experience, but I can guarantee you won't hear anything else quite like it.
MoHa! on MySpace
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