I really have to be in an expansive and large-hearted mood to be magnanimous about this sort of compilation. I guess right now I’m not. After seeing that Förlag För Fri Musik staples Leda and Enhet För Fri Musik would be on this edition-of-100 all-Swedes LP, along w/ many unknown fellow Nordic travelers, I plunked down the required “import fees” to get one of ‘em shipped across the ocean to me, only to find that it’s the sort of bunk jive comp I’ve spent most of my life attempting to avoid.

It’s effectively a collection of sound snippets: some noisy, some ethereal and folkish, some of a masterbatory clown with a horn honking away solo in a bedroom. No matter how “fractured” and “lo-fi” the recording, there’s really no effective way to piece together barrel scrapings this mindless and somehow posit that it’s a document of a scene that’s worthy of documentation. Divorced from the broader context of their own (excellent) recent LP, even the Enhet För Fri Musik tracks land with all the authority of a missed left hook. The proverbial silver lining is that there’ll probably be someone on Discogs willing to take this off my hands for what I paid for it. (editor’s note: there was!)