The Fleshquartet [Fläskkvartetten] and Meat Beat [Kött Bit] from 1987 Sweden, powerful RIO 45rpm

This is a 12 inch 45 rpm mini-album but it lasts a bit under half an hour of driving intensity, first vinyl out in 1987 from this group that went on to make many more albums in the soon-to-be CD era.  To me it's like a combination of Samla's Forge with other RIO incorporations like the Univers Zero string quartet sound and what they call an industrial beat.  And indeed this could be the megafactory sounds of an AI-powered robot workforce banging out percussive instruments for a purely digital Martian colony with the energy boost from taking out their frustrations at not getting that precious record contract from those fat cat executives...  The robots, that is.  These musicians did actually get a bona fide record contract, from Swedish Mistlur (made albums by huge progsters Trettioåriga Kriget, Psynkopat, Thomas Almqvist, etc.) and then bought out by MNW (sub-Universal) later.   I'm amazed at the daring audacity of that particular label or perhaps the tolerance of Swedes for music designed for insane asylums.

At times they play a genericized blues basis with some sort of subatomic or quantum overlayer, the polytonality sounding like the weirdness of particle-wave duality with the violinist twirling odd figures about the rhythm section like a crazy-grinned inmate on a maximum security ward poking you with philosophical nonsequiturs...  At times a cello (electrified?) performs the role of programmed synthesizer for the obbligato tenor repetitive pattern in a kind of electro-acoustic mashup that is quite odd.  Don't think I've heard that before.  As usual with Swedish music some folk importations appear here and there like virtual particles bubbling out of the quantum foam.  Art Zoyd chamber attempts profitably recall that French master group of modern music, an old favourite of mine, as in En Blick:






I took a quick listen to the other later albums to find out what we're dealing with.  The 1986 Moondog album is modern classical chamber music, evidently.  Reminds me of Jean-Philippe Goude's later music.  Minus the ether.

The next Fleshquartet album What's Your Pleasure went too far in the direction of proto-alternative sung tracks but there remain flashes of brilliance, consider the beautiful composition Kunstens Have, with its dramatic crescendo:

In the 1998 album Jag Ger Vad Som Helst  alt rock takes over completely.  Yet the Introduction to Nada Yoga track has a Samla vibe to it:





Note that this album which is meant to be played at 45 rpm can also be enjoyably listened to at the lower one-third rotation.  Both copies are available here for your perusal.

Here are those crazies in group photo, god bless 'em: