A DELICATE, romantic, but also startling new talent emerges. It arrives in the form of Stockholm's superficially mild-mannered, but inwardly fiercely passionate Global Infantilists - proud creators of one of '83's most impressive debut offerings, an epic eight-track mini-LP entitled, with stark honesty, 'The Global Infantilists'.
  The music is gentle, but at the same time it pulsates with a steamy, poetic, dream-like energy. It's also unusual, placing strangely operatic vocals with a bewildering array of instruments that in fact sound far more colossal in number than they actually are. On 'The Global Infantilists' even the puny, and universally unloved household piano manages to play an awe-some role in the mystical scheme of things.
  The Infantilists conjure a bristling, and somehow eerie power, but always completely without assistance from age-old solutions such as mega-grinding guitars, thunderous drum cascades and the like, instead they get by with just a brimming creative force, loving care, and a quite outstanding grasp of subtlety. They are, truth be told, very unusual ... and also very strange.
  Being strange has meant that since their formation in 1980, the Global Infantilists have not earnt a single penny. Even so, they've never been tempted to budge an inch from their true musical

selves for the sake of commerciality, and now that Abstract have released their debut album over here, they still won't budge.
  Both Infantilists, namely Mare Kandre of the heavenly vocals, and multi-instrumentalist Olle Schedin (two other musicians, both on the LP, have departed since its release) are quite rightly proud of their obstinance.
  Mare: "I am, because the fact is that here in England we haven't compromised anything. Loads of Swedish groups want English people to be interested in what they do and try to translate their lyrics, (into English) and they do everything, sending records to record companies ... but we haven't done anything like that, people have just taken it for what it is, so it feels very good that way."
  — Of course, there's no need for the band's curiously sensual lyrics to be changed for our benefit anyway, lyricist Mare's intense dislike for her native Swedish ("It sounds, like a tongue disease") and even stronger affection for the English language takes care of that. Nevertheless, vital radio­ space seems to be eluding them.
  Mare: "John Peel apparently said something about the lyrics sounding as though someone had been translating them from Swedish into English...

They don't sound like that at all) Anybody with a bit of a bit of sense can hear that."
  How does Swedish radio treat you?
  "They don't treat us at all, I think they hate us .... No, they . don't, they ignore us, they're so confused. They want everything to fit into little slots and to label everything, but we don't sound like anything else, and that's' just a bit difficult for them to understand."
  Olle: "I don't think they can understand the lyrics. I think we've been played on the radio there twice ..."
  Mare: "On very different programmes. One was in a punk programme, and the other was in a very sort of, classy programme."
  Olle: (laughing) "That's fun."
Mare: "If it hadn't been fo punk, we wouldn't have started in the first place. I still find it very ... I can't believe I'm in this position. It's really strange."
  Olle: "I was in a punk group, in about 1978, and that was really my musical kick, you know? That was a time when we had fun and learned things... The Global Infantilists is the first thing where I feel ... this is really good)"
  So now they're a duo, with live work the very last thing on their minds, and a second LP is

Next page ==>