Mondo Bungle

I gotta say that there's people calling this one of the weirdest sounding albums ever, and that's just far from being true. Sure it's unusual, but hardly in the same league as some avant garde music out there.

It is though, a highly progressive and complicated presentation of folk music, which I can't imagine being a genre you go to for off the wall complexity and arrangements. (disclaimer: I'm sure there's tons of that and I am by no means a folk expert)

This definitely would be my favorite folk album though. Very extensive compositions made up of a plethora of acoustic instruments. Multiple guitars, flutes, all kinds of drums, violiny strings and whatever. The musicianship is virtuosic from all angles, really an astounding display here. And it's quite often very "listenable". Sure, the structure of the songs are unusual, experimental, and highly diverse, but it's not some atonal romp of nonsense instrument noise. Musically it's not as out there as you'd expect from some reviews. It does dip into bits of bizarre experimentation with screechy strings and vocals, yeah, but that just adds to the party. There's an underlying uniqueness within the music but all in all it's more "prog" than "avant" folk, with advanced musicality and very contrasting lyrics about all kinds of odd mystical things. It also has an organic sense of psychedelia to it. That is to say, not brought about by electronic effects and modulations, but it just exists within the acoustic instrumentation. That's another pretty unique (and awesome) bit to it.

So yeah I think this is an incredible album, and highly recommended. I think it's a must hear for people exploring folk, psychedelic, experimental, progressive, or all of the above music... if you're reading and care or whatever

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