Review: Mungolian Jetset - Schlungs

Absolutely crazy, yet massively enjoyable Norwegian cosmic disco fare, this. Mungolian Jetset's third album is every bit as daft as the front cover would suggest, a gloriously and self-consciously silly kitsch outer space romp that is probably the only out-and-out great party album I've heard all year. Why is this? Where has all the fun party music gone? Whenever I want to put on something really rocking and good fun before a night out, it's almost always from the late '90s at best, and usually a lot older than that.

Anyway, this album is probably not going to appeal if you're insufferably serious about music, as almost everyone in the dance scene is in some way or another these days. Even most of the people in the cosmic disco scene seem to be daft hipsters who are too self-conscious and ironic to really have a good time to this kind of thing anyway: witness Pitchfork's ludicrous review for ample evidence of how to suck the fun out of an album where one of the choruses goes "Take a trip to outer space, where proggy disco is the superior race".

Most of the tracks here are big, sing-along disco anthems, a deliberately silly exaggeration of everything that was already big and silly and brilliantly enjoyable about 1970s disco. The highlight is quite clearly Moon Jocks N Prog Rocks, a sprawling ten minute opus that is one of those tracks where the creators were clearly having a fuck-ton of fun when they recorded it. It's one of those tracks that's so magnificent it threatens to overshadow the rest of the album, and true nothing else here is quite as good. But then, that's probably just as well, otherwise this album would be like gorging on chocolate cake for an hour. Some of the more instrumental and chilled material is quite good in its own right as layered and interesting listening music, but really this is a party album.

I don't want to talk about this one too much, but it kept a big grin on my face for just about the whole listening time, which is a rare feat for any album. I can understand if it's a little bit too silly for some people's tastes, but if you can just lighten the fuck up and play it loud with friends before a night out, I guarantee you'll fall under its charms.

Genre: Cosmic disco.
Stupid Arbitrary Rating: 8/10