It was all in all a fruitless day. I wasn’t planning to do anything. Watch a classic Eastwood flick and let adult cold drive me drowsy for a morning hurry I’d rather not wake up early to. Well, I don’t think I’m going to change that plan. But at least tonight is coming to a joyful fate. Because I’m lending ears to a crazy freak-folk band from Copenhagen. Daring as Akron/Family and unsettling and restless as a Devendra Banhart whose modern rock’s lousy repetitive obnoxiousness has driven him mad. A revenge scheme is here!

Hanuman 5 is led by singer/composer/guitarist Kristian Haarløv. When I read the tagline of their band in my mail that described them as “all involved in many aspects of the Copenhagen music scene” I misinterpreted the line as bragging. But this all luckily turned out wrong. This is an odd combination of folk that does not hide its zest for sketching their songs to 8 or 10 minutes. And believe me, this roller coaster ride of genre galore sounds adventurous and exciting. If you found them joyous, mad and hard to categorize but fun-lovin’, why not share this soothing insanity?

The album is called Ethereo and will be released as of March 1st via Safety First Records. Hmm. No, They don’t mind if you play the whole thing down here. Also if you check their Facebook out, they have a unique collective of influence that has infected their chaotic shifts from afro to pop, from Yim Yames to acid jazz and from Scandinavia to Simon & Garfunkel. And man! This is too much music on one LP to begin with.

Photo: Tony Katai

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posted 3 months ago