Coalmine 5 ‘Døden Drømmer Livet’

01 Døden Drømmer Livet (4:53)
02 Ismaela (2:08)
03 Eurasisk Slått (4:01)
04 Bushido (3:13)
05 Tynn Luft (5:19)
06 Scratching Train To Hell (2:33)
07 Ave Maria (2:09)
08 Sampo Suru (3:59)
09 Cold Mind (2:21)
10 Hermetisk Pingvin (1:35)
11 Gjeter Med Spaltet Tunge (2:00)
12 Blyantspisserens Sorg (3:19)
13 Der Og Da (4:30)
14 The Determinal Sky (2:30)
15 Jeg Vet Hvor… Landet La (1:17)

Total time 45:30
Cassette reissue on Tragic Figure, Portugal, TF 004, 1988?-90?

Personnel:
Zetlitz: voc, voice, perc, pipes, kbds, tapes
Anacleto: bs, bouzouki, kbds, voc, pipes, perc, tapes, gtr, clarinet
Felix Filius: voice, voc, kbds, gtr, pipes, perc, bs, bouzouki etc
Ato: voice, voc, gtr, perc, pipes
Sten Thure: drums, perc, gtr, bs, voc, pipes etc
Mentalnerve The Young: bs, gtr, voc, voice, pipes, perc, kbds, balalaika etc
Mentalnerve The Very Young: gtr, mandolin, perc, voc, balalaika, bouzouki, kbds, vacuum cleaner

Norwegian band Coalmine 5 was formed in the mid-1980s, first as a duo, then as a loose collective of 5 or more participants. This cassette was their first release, with tracks recorded from 1986-88 and first published in May 1988 by The Crawling Chaos label (ref. SHiT 016), in Aust-Agder fylke, Norway – my copy is the Portuguese reissue. Crawling Chaos was founded by Dave Jørgensen and Robert Ommundsen and was the label of legendary folk-psychedelic band Famlende Forsøk (info here, here and LP here). Coalmine 5 play surrealist, psychedelic-inspired folk music with Norwegian lyrics and a wide array of diverse instruments including flutes, bouzouki and jew’s harp. A few tracks are regular songs, the rest is grotesque chorales, obscure chanting and collective madness. Track#14 ‘The Determinal Sky’ is a cabaret number and, generally speaking, the music is rather theatrical thanks to many vocalists contributing in all kinds of styles (declamatory, grotesque, hushed or obscure). Typically, Coalmine 5 composed music to a theater performance of Alfred Jarry’s King Ubu. Whether the lyrics are folk traditionals or surrealist poetry, I can’t tell, but the music itself is a mix of both. The cassette title apparently means ‘Death Dreams Life’: a trip from death to life through dreams in the surrealist tradition.

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