A new slab of weirdo cult music from the constellation of musicians, thinkers and glorious slackers in Gothenburg. This batch features the new album by Amateur Hour, their fourth, in which they scale back on the noise a little and reveal some timeless tunes. Not tooooo scaled back though, there’s still enough freakery for you folk.
Elsewhere, Amateur Hour’s Hugo Randulv has made a stunning 2nd record based around cello and guitar which sounds like a more DIY, cassette-taped Julius Eastman, Virginia Astley’s Garden, maximum slow-dirge gorgeousness. Discreet Music, the label and shop that’s very much at the heart of the scene have their first compilation, a collection called 5 Years Of Failure that provides a snapshot of the main players and the tributaries. Those are screenprinted on “found sleeves” with an A1 poster!? Recent releases on the label are included here too, like the Blod album (an actually very affecting choir album, no less) and a reissue of 2014’s Enhet For Fri Music album that was an early recorded document of the scene.