GARMONBOZIA

ENSEMBLE NIMBUS third album, the second on the Record Heaven label, follows the same musical direction as we're used to hear with elements from Zeuhl and RIO. There are reminiscences to ART ZOYD, ETRON FOU, HENRY COW, SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA and UNIVERS ZERO. If ENSEMBLE NIMBUS weren't signed to the Record Heaven label, they would've been perfect for the Cuneiform label. The music on "Garmonbozia" is recorded, mixed, edited and mastered simultaneously as their previous album "Scapegoat". I think that "Scapegoat" and "Garmonbozio" were intended to be a double album in the beginning. The only disappointment is that the cover art is almost the same as on "Scapegoat". The painting on the last page in the CD-booklet for "Scapegoat" is exactly the same as the front cover of "Garmonbozia". You get the impression that it was quickly put together just before the release. Strange, because to me Record Heaven is known for high quality. But I guess there's an explanation, perhaps it's because of the two albums musical resemblance to each other. The album is all-instrumental, and the highlights are the 12 minute opening track "Three Stories From The Blue Cage", "Ducks In Paradise", the chaotic "Turmoil" and "The Arrow Of Time" where Hasse Bruniusson, known from SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA and The FLOWER KINGS, has the chance to show his talents. I think that Hasse has to be one of Sweden's top drummers today within the progressive genre. Overall this album is more complex than both their previous albums and I guess that's why it has become my favourite ENSEMBLE NIMBUS album so far. Highly recommended!

ENSEMBLE NIMBUS from Sweden was the musical project of multi-instrumentalist Hakan Almkvist. I say "was" because this album I'm reviewing is their most recent release from 2000. Hakan actually released a cassette only in 1992 where he did it all, a solo release under the name NIMBUS. He's playing harmonium, accordion, guitar and tablas on that one. Then under the name ENSEMBLE NIMBUS they released three albums.

A four piece of violin/viola, clarinet/bass clarinet, drums and Hakan playing guitar, bass, keyboards, tapes, loops, FX and voice. The vocals are more spoken or wordless. We get a couple of keyboardists guesting on two tracks each including surprisingly Thomas Bodin from THE FLOWER KINGS. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised as the drummer here is Hansi Bruniusson who also plays in THE FLOWER KINGS, but he has some RIO/ Avant credentials having played with SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA for years. So like SAMLA... this is a lot of fun, quirky and complex.

I'm not sure why they used the same cover art as the previous album, although it's a closeup of the dude's head here. The band's name and the cover art makes me think East European, but no! Uppsala, Sweden my friends. This was a long process apparently as it was recorded between 1996 and 1999. Fourteen songs and under 53 minutes. By the way the clarinet player also plays "altered" clarinet. Interesting. The music was written pretty much equally between Hakan and Hasse. So we get jazzy avant music with some humour. The clarinet and violin play large roles here. That 12 minute opener is my favourite. It's all downhill after that(haha).

Seriously though I have a hard time with this one, I can appreciate it for sure, but I just don't connect with it much.