Halasan Bazar & Tara King th. are the modern Danish equivalent to Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. In fact, these two are serious devotees of the underappreciated ’60s duo and do their best to replicate the psychedelic, fringe country that Hazlewood made famous.
The bands whimsical folk-rock is offset by a wash of cinematic baroque pop, resulting in a strange and compelling take on the genre, best summed up as “interplanetary western.” Guitars shimmer and keyboards swirl and chime to form an atmosphere of giddy intoxication, while bass and drums provide a backbone of pulsating precision. In the foreground are the stoned, downtrodden vocals of Fredrick Rollum Eckoff and the seductive and nuanced tones of Béatrice Morel-Journel.
Together, they have perfected the off-the-cuff beauty of call and response beatnik poetry. Their voices tumble over the moody backdrops, complimenting each other’s unique delivery as Nancy and Lee did on their seminal recordings. The bands LP, entitled 8, was released earlier this month on Moon Glyph.
