Museum Musica

Belgium, 1980, rock in opposition / avant-prog

Aqsak Maboul – Un peu de l’âme des bandits: What a maddening, thrilling album this is! It’s gone from 4.4 to 5 stars upon this most recent re-listening. I didn’t care for “Inoculating Rabies” the first couple times, calling it “headache inducing” if I remember correctly. I take it back. I guess I’ve been exposed to much harder, more discordant stuff recently, so now I understand where the track fits in the overall flow of the album. *Insanity, carnival, seraglio*. These are the three words that ran through my head while listening. The music weaves itself from a dingy American dive to a gypsy fairgrounds in an English field to a Turkish harem. From all these far sundered places the music returns to the wild, claustrophobic experimentation of the studio. Utterly brilliant!