Mugison "Sad As A Truck"

Tweaking folk and rock music conventions much like fellow Icelandic contemporary Bjork adapts just about every other style of music to her muse, home-country superstar Mugison has created a bizarre yet accessible album of outsider art-pop in Mugimama: Is This Monkey Music? Serious, heartfelt sentiment is bulldozed by shards of dissonance and highlighted by frequent electronic blippery, like Trout Mask Replica remixed by Autechre while getting blown by Jon Spencer (or something like that). Album highlight “Sad As A Truck” (mp3) vividly displays Mugison’s bizarre voice as it careens from a childish Banhart croon to a Don Van Vliet micropone-destroying growl and occasionally to a pop metal squeal. Keep in mind while listening to this song that this man recently swept the pop song and album categories at Iceland’s national music awards, beating out Bjork among others.

After recovering, buy Mugimama: Is This Monkey Music? here.