-valis Pick of the Week

Hagl Voyagers! Pluk i ugen er Halasan Bazar, from Copenhagen, Denmark! Thier latest release, Space Junk, is out on Crash Symbols. On vinyly, too!

Cptn. Habi Halasan, The mysterious Mr. Bazar, Henry The Rabbit (bangs the tambourine), Dr. Grobble, Fangdelu, and Monseur Monitor have a created another stylish slice of that crunchy California-in-the-60s masterwork. Quite different from predecessor How To Be Ever Happy, this one was recorded at home via methods and material available to the scheming dreamer and ostensible leader, Fredrik Eckhoff. "Shitzofranium" wouldn't be out of place on early Kurt Vile albums, the hookah haze wafting and the caterpillar on your shoulder.

As beautiful and unique as a spore print, you have to play it to discover its power and travel options within. This I believe. Here's what a few others have said:
Patrick Bowman, Pitchfork:
" Halasan Bazar's intense reverence for the sounds of the late 1960s was the driving force behind their 2012 album How to Be Ever Happy. "You & I", from the Copenhagen group's upcoming release Space Junk (out April 2 via Crash Symbols), a wiry psych-pop fever dream that delivers watery guitar lines, chiming xylophones, and appropriately zonked-out vocals from lead singer Fredrik Eckhoff. Halasan Bazar move beyond mere homage territory by vividly evoking the fuzzed-out bliss of a hallucinogenic-induced stupor, rather than dwelling on a chord-for-chord imitation of their influences. "

George Bass, Drowned In Sound: " Halasan Bazar are counterfeiters: rarely has a Copenhagen-based guitar group sounded more like Sixties’ Californian college dropouts immune to soap, dope and employment. Fredrik Eckhoff and his bandmates are in a Dr Evil time warp, refusing to acknowledge any new technology since Woodstock and playing a blend of the groovy pop songs that inspired their parents’ generations to tune in. They put as much heart into this second album of hippy ditties as they can, and create some scratchy, eight-track quality hits that howl and frolic like coyote cubs....
Whatever Halasan Bazar’s intentions with Space Junk were, the end result keeps wavering. When the record sticks to its hippy theme it has a sweet, scruffy sound, and Eckhoff’s buddies ensure there are plenty of tambourines and hazy guitars to cement his lyrics about sodium lights/strangers’ eyeballs/all the good bits of doing acid in the country. Occasionally they drop a strong pop hook, such as the mesmerising riff on ‘Ease Up’, like a happy ‘Street Spirit’, but then fatigue creeps in and they fidget around with indie rock, like Mark Oliver Everett when he’s really got the blues. It puts a downer on the psychedelic highs the band are capable of, which they pull of with such twanging authenticity that you’ll swear you’re in California watching pretty girls put flowers over people’s heads."


There's also a great piece on Portals Music Storytellers from Fredrik on the background of the album.

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You can listen to the archived stream here; or, hear it this Friday, on The Dead Man's Turn Me On, Dead Man show on Live365, where it's heard every Friday at noon eastern time, as well as Mr. Atavist's Sunrise Ocean Bender show, heard every Monday from 1 to 3 am eastern, on WRIR in Richmond, VA.

Note:
Adding the Pick of the Week to their show is Dogs Got A Bone out of Edinburgh, Scotland, from 10pm to midnight, U.K. time, (adjust accordingly,) on Belter Radio. Thanks Col Chant!