ZAMLA MAMMAZ MANNA – Schlagerns mystik/För äldre nybegynnare (Silence, 1978)

Instrumental, Swedish vocals

International relevance: ***

This sounds like a band lost, and they pretty much were exactly that in 1978. Having lost Coste Apetrea after Samla Mammas Manna collaborative album with Greg FitzPatrick in 1976, ”Snorungarnas symfoni”, the band reformed as Zamla Mammaz Manna with Eino Haapala in Apetrea's place. The first outing from this 'new' band was this double set, actually combining two separate albums.

I've always thought that the slapstick side of Samla Mammas Manna's music is incredibly annoying, even a bit embarassing. The first disc here, entitled ”Schlagerns mystik”, takes all that silliness and inflates it to the size of a weather balloon. Parts of the overlong ”Ödet” (17 minutes, bad idea) are OK, but the rest of the album has a seriously high suckitude level.

”För äldre nybegynnare” is the title of the second disc and is a collection of jams recorded live at various locations in Sweden. It's even worse than ”Schlagerns mystik”. There's no direction, no plan, no substance, no idea, no clue, no point, no nothing. It's like a kindergarten on steroids while the teachers are zonked out on prescription drugs. This is exactly the kind of (un)musical bunkum that gives avantgarde music a bad name.

Bring those two idiocies together and you get the worst ever release under the Samla/Zamla banner.

Well, that's not quite true because in 1979, they released a reggae parody 45 called "Lejonet av Ljuga" and that stinks so bad you have to breathe menthol for eighteen days straight after listening to it.

Full album playlist