Customer Reviews

Holidays in Europe (The Naughty Nought)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This brutally intense concept album sounds like it was recorded yesterday, not 1985. Bjork and Einar Orn shared vocal duties in the experimental rock band KUKL before forming the slightly more mainstream Sugarcubes in 1986. So HOLIDAYS IN EUROPE is full of the same wonderful Bjork-Einar vocal interplay that was so omnipresent on the first two Sugarcubes albums. The lyrics, mostly in English, are straight out of a nightmare. Musically it is like nothing you've ever heard before. An apt description of Kukl might be *The Sugarcubes on acid*. Highly recommended for any fan of the Sugarcubes and Bjork, or for anyone interested in timeless experimental music.

Here are the track titles according to the vinyl version. Hope it's of help.
1. OUTWARD FLIGHT (psalm 323)
2. FRANCE (a mutal thrill)
3. GIBRALTER (copy thy neighbor)
4. GREECE (just by the book)
5. ENGLAND (zro)
6. HOLLAND (latent)
7. AEGEAN (vials of wrath)
8. THE HOMECOMING (the night, this is what she sounds like)

The first time I heard this album, I gasped. So this was the album I had waited for to hear in my whole life! My musical tastes range from industrial, goth, black/death metal, avant-garde, experimental pop, dance, techno etc. but this is (both lyrically and musically) the most extreme and intense album I have ever had the pleasure to hear. I am a fan of Björk and while I think that her latest stuff (Homogenic and Vespertine) is great, Kukl is the most uncompromising and experimental music she has ever been a part of. Siggi (from the Sugarcubes) is an amazing drummer and the guitar player, Gulli, with his own way of playing, also shines. Einar is brilliant and matches Björk perfectly.

The lyrics are surrealistic, very dark. "Man on the Cross" mocks Xianity and in "Latent" Björk tells how it feels to be raped. The music is very chaotic, experimental... it's like combining horror movie music with jazz together with punk and hard rock. Every song on this album is excellent moreover.

The only group that comes near the sound of Kukl is Şeyr, not very odd, since it was Kukl's predecessor featuring the guitar player from Kukl, Gulli and the drummer from Kukl and the Sugarcubes, Siggi.

And Kukl in Björk's own words, well in an interview from AUGUST 18 2001, The Times, she says: "But out of all the bands I've been in until today, K.U.K.L was the most like a blueprint for my music-making. And for the six of us, we all quit the bands we were in and it was almost like a cult - talking about polarising. Birthday [the first Sugarcubes single] was like a cute little candy-bar compared to what we were. I still meet people that saw us and say "that is the best concert I've ever heard in my whole life", or "that was the worst pile of rubbish". It was like five times more extreme than the Sugarcubes." [...] "For me personally I was missing them [Kukl]. But it wasn't like a joke [as the Sugarcubes] - jokes are great, right? But it was from the heart, it was serious".

Oh, and Björk had a tattoo behind her ear done (a symbol representing chaos) supposedly, so she wouldn't forget her years with Kukl.

A master work. Kukl mixes true jazz, Schonberg's a-tonals, Nietzschian rants, and a thin surface of rock to create a truely fantastic album. This is the true unbought Bjork, the heart is there, the passion, the anti-intelectualism, the mission, the anger, the beauty, the cause, the youth, everything that is best but truer of the Sugar Cubes and Bjork's solo career. Won't disapoint. Zapa fans get it, you'll be pleasently suprised, true jazz fans too. Coffee house lovers will like it also. A must have for the rock afficianado.

I love Bjork's music. I found this CD not too long ago. When I first listened to it I didn't understand its darkness. I was surprised to hear Bjork and Einer performing music so modal, so sinister, and even micro-tonal in parts. But I love it now. This album will grow on you. Especially if you like the diversity, and genius of Bjork. And for those of us that wish that Einer would shut up and let Bjork sing in the Sugarcubes, Einer has a voice that fits perfectly with this quirky music. So does Bjork for that matter. I'd recomend this, but only to the truly adventurous.

I love this album, although it would be hard not to for any fan of avant-rock, especially Thinking Plague. This is probably my favorite album of its genre along with Thinking Plague's _In This Life_. Kukl is assumedly best-known as Bjork's first band, but it would probably frighten most of those attached to Bjork's poppy (albeit weird) sensibilities. _Holidays in Eden_ is a phantasmagoric, atonal rock masterpiece at the zenith of imagination and songcraft. This album scores one billion on the fackked-up scale, and it is definitely the best thing Bjork has EVER been involved in. It sounds much like Thinking Plague's early albums, especially the dirty, aggressive quality of _Moonsongs_, but with fewer prog-influences. The moments of dissonant rock genius are everywhere. The first track is full of plinking vibraphones, subtle, dissonant overtones on horns, and Bjork is singing in her own sort of way. Song two sounds like a Thinking Plague meets Faust, with a odd-metered, proggy riff mangled by tampering with the tape to make it fade in and out, and speed down so suddenly as to become as a aural haze, even if only for a second. Track four sounds like something from a crazy horror movie, with heavy marching rhythms and nontonal, seemingly improvised guitars chords in the background, which gradually come more to the fore bring all their juicy, crunchy dissonance with them. It has a really scared-sounding guy singing with organ accompaniment and Bjork yelling with atonal piano solo accompaniment, and samples of applause, creepy laughing, and chanting. Song five... staccato horns, sustained off-key singing, and more grumbling, growling rhythms. Song six has Bjork and some guy yelling frantically at each other over a clamorous soundscape of drums and synthesizers. It may or may not be English. Song seven has pointillist synths of what sounds like some sort of vibrating column of air. I don't even know what the song titles are. Yet for all its bombastic dispositions, there is something of a mystery to this album, and it is that which makes it so poignant. The musicality is amazing and Bjork sounds like she could explode at any moment. An adorable classic -- way better than your johnny five-star albums.

If I had to pick one word to describe this it would be "intense". This cd will leave you dumbfounded... from the strange instrumentation to bjork's acrobatic vocals (I especially like the first song for this) to the dense, meaningful, shocking lyrics. If you have a faint heart you might not want to listen to this ;) ...but if you like to have your mind exercised I would give this one a listen. I feel smarter after I listen to it! hehehe!

I listen to music a lot... and Holidays in Europe is the most original album I've listened to. If you're a very open-minded listener then you should try this one out... If you like mainstream music you might regard this album as annoying noise.

A truly amazing album, "Holidays in Europe" is pre-Sugarcubes Bjork with Einar and a few other friends making some of the most original, most amazing music I've ever heard. I own both the LP and CD, but the CD lacks a tracklist (although both have the same tracklist). Anti-government, anti-Christianity and anti- a few other things show up in this album, which is more political than Kukl's 'The Eye.' A favorite of mine is "The Man On The Cross," a song that has a hell of a lot to say. If you're looking for something the than the usual..try this.

(Kukl is better than the 'Cubes, in my opinion)

If you're a novice bjork fan, I'd go through her solo catalog before delving into the more obscure stuff. But this album is great, you can tell the Sugarcubes were just around the corner. I think anything Bjork makes is great!