Fantasy Sex
SWEDEN FÖRDÄMNING ARKIV 11 LP (2023)
Gothenburg – centre of the Universe…at any rate the home to the Utmarken venue / recording space, also a record shop and a rehearsal space, and breeding ground for much delicious noise music for a number of years – between 2008 and 2011 to be exact. Music associated with this Gothenburg nexus has passing through these pages over the years, and into my grateful ears, mainly thanks to the labels Release The Bats run by Matthias Andersson, and Fang Bomb (which I think has now moved to London). It was on the Gothenburg 08 comp that I might have first heard Anders Dahl, The Skull Defekts, Sewer Election, Porn Sword Tobacco, Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, and Tsukimono; and on the 10-inch LP Utmarken from 2010, I encountered Street Drinkers, Källarbarnen, White and Ättestupa. Some of these are still active today.
In providing his very useful notes for today’s LP, Matthias Andersson hints at the underground beneath the underground; Sewer Election and Ättestupa, for instance, were comparatively well-known, performed live a few times, went overseas, even made records on a regular basis (although probably not as many as Wolf Eyes, the American group that so aggressively colonised the “noise” space for a long time in this period). What of the barely-existing one-off bands, often comprising unemployed youngsters with nothing better to do, all contributing to the mountain of home-made cassettes with spray-painted covers that were only sold at gigs? Here’s one of them – Fantasy Sex. The duo of David Eng and Dan Johansson didn’t exist for more than a couple of years, 2009-2010, but somehow managed to leave a trace at Utmarken and even make a few recordings. The fleeting, evanescent moment of their existence is captured in words by the diligent Andersson, noting what sources he can be certain of, and sympathetically documenting their work in the context of the cultural effusion of like-minded artistes (such as Dolphins Into The Future, Viking Jews) and micro tape labels (such as 267 Lattajjaa). I do like the way Andersson is sometimes unsure if these things ever happened; and that when he published an issue of Fordamning (in 2017) dedicated to the Utmarken scene, that “I realised how quick some memories fade away”.
Fantasy Sex are now captured on vinyl thanks to this tireless rescue job, which includes ‘Nature Is Kind’ (in three parts), ‘Desperate Attempts’ and ‘Waves Of Skin’. David Eng and Dan Johansson produced this very dense and mesmerising sound through tape loops, an amplified Kalimba, and distorted electronics; besides influences from Dolphins Into The Future, I would say I can also hear traces of James Ferraro in this hazy, enveloping bath. This might be simply because the tape loops – on the A side at least – are drawn from tropical jungle sources, multiplying into an imaginary paradise of lush greenery and omnipresent bird song. They also remind me of Star Turbine, the Danish-Norwegian combo who likewise delight in lo-fi home-made electronics and live in a world of their own. Matthias Andersson points out how ‘Desperate Attempts’, recorded just one year after the lush greenery of the lovely A-side, dispenses with the tape loops and instead edges towards a more nihilistic and almost violent dimension, and with the live drumming and woodwinds seems to be operating some way outside of the “enclosed” comforts of ‘Nature Is Kind’.
It’s been a pleasure to discover this music, but now I’m intrigued by all the “short-lived one-off sideprojects / weird offshoots” that our compiler mentions, such as Folds Of Flesh, Smutsiga Fingrar, Doors Of Perception and Looks Of Love. Sadly it seems they not only didn’t make a recording, some of them never got any further than an idea or a band name. From the same label that brought you the Fysisk Fostran record. From 17 Nov 2023.