Velvet Grooves

What a find this was....WHAT a find... the new post-rock/jazz experimentalists from Denmark known as Slaraffenland, have cooked up this album released on Hometapes. Their second release as a band, but their first on HT. It's a brave record, really is. You've absolutely no idea what the record is about when you look at the card-board 'book' style sleeve stuffed with cartoony characters filtered through a minimalist style. But the record is actually really full, inventive, interesting and epic.

Just from the start on 'Sleep Tight' we have some diverse folk coming from the flutes, to a kind of ritualistic wail from one of the band - like an old Animal Collective track. This then delves into a rocky extravaganza closer to something Sonic Youth would do. It's brilliant, it really is!

If any of you have been on their MySpace, you would've probably heard 'Polaroids' before. It's initially a dreamy synth led track which hops to a mellow post-rock style with horns - eventually just randomly throwing mad oscillating synths in, transforming the track into something of an alternative rock effort.

'This One Will Kill Us' is where they transform again into an indie Animal Collective. Like maybe AC fronted by Wayne Coyne. This is something that displays how well they can just swap between genres with ease, and not lose it at all. I really applaud them for their effort here, as it's genres you wouldn’t expect together - you'd normally classify it as unlistenable, but Slaraffenland seem to pull it off almost perfectly well. A track of incredible atmospherics, deeply beautiful, dreamy at one time - Sonic Youth in another... excellent...!

The album gets more experimental later on, going into territories of My Bloody Valentine, other territories of minimalist prog-rock and avant-folk. All that, and finishing off with a Sigur Ros style epic. Just amazing...

The first time I listened to this CD, I knew it was something special. But over time its also grown, and I love it more and more... It's full of interesting textures, unexpected genre twists, many obscure instruments thrown in which you wouldn't expect to hear together - which work well... I can't wait to hear what these come up with in future!