Voodooland

NOTE: This album is a single-disc CD containing all 8 full-length tracks! ...................................................................................................................................... As Swedish funk masters in Beat Funktion get to grips with their third concept album, they handily adopt a musical strategy that is as elaborate as any piece of literature, art or stage play. The ominously titled 'Voodooland', it's cover meticulously decorated by hand-drawn occult voodoo symbols and tropical psychedelia, instantly gives you the heads up that this will be a venture into foreign territory - more or less: Africa or Haiti. The album's sublime cover art has that rare two-fold quality by sending chills down one's spine and being hauntingly beautiful at the same time. What regards the music, long-time Beat Funktion aficionados will not be disappointed. This is their floor-filling power-funk at it's absolute best. However, in comparison to their two previous excellent albums ('The Plunge' 2010 and 'Moon Town' 2013, also released on Do Records), Voodooland surprises by being more or less stripped to it's bare necessities: the six-piece band. Seemly enough for this approach, luxury items such as string players, backing choirs and space synths that frequented their previous efforts have been dispensed with in favour of somewhat of a 'desert island'-strategy for pure funk survival: Karl Olandersson's trumpet, Olle Thunstrom's tenor sax, John Oijen's electric guitar, Daniel Lantz' keyboards, Pal Johnson's electric bass and Jon Eriksson's drums - essentially, the core - are what we are left with here. But add to that guest performers Simon Monserrat and Folke Lantz' groove-infested African percussion and Staffan Hallgren's light-as-air flute, and you have what may aptly be named bare-bones 'jungle funk'. Lastly, while nit-pickers may find it tiring in the long run, the adherence to an extremely dirty mix, crackling amps and distorted snares, cleverly recalls the sounds of ancient, warped 45s dug up from vaults of obscure labels, which endows the package with a certain 'Robinson Crusoe'-appeal, reminding us that we are far away from the technical resources of Western civilization. To each his own, but I found the dusty grooves and vibes of the album extremely punchy and it's lo-fi colouration an essential part of it's aesthetic. As understood by the website of Do Music Records, the music of 'Voodooland' was written exclusively for the Japanese market, and has until now been exclusive to funk-lovers in Japan. Chief composer is Beat Funktion keyboardist Daniel Lantz (aka the Swedish piano player who issued 'Plays Bond' with his jazz trio last year) who has penned all eight tracks presented here. Lantz impresses by finding great variety in the feel and tone of his compositions, and gives his band ample space for improvisation and fun times. The song titles appropriately convey the African feel of the album: the upbeat numbers 'Sunkissed' and 'Kilimanjaro' accurately paint the sun-drenched vistas of Africa, and 'The Rain Dancer' is a blues-tinged prayer for the rain, 'Savannah Strut' finds us traversing vast stretches of African savannah, the dark twilight of Africa is to be found in the ominous title track 'Voodooland', and 'Mangroove', finally, puts us among the deepest trenches of the African swamplands, becoming the longest funk roller-coaster of the album. The most impressive aspect of the music, not surprisingly, is how tight t