Katzenjammer – Le Pop

Who are Katzenjammer? It’s a tougher question than you’d think: they’ve a German name, a French album title, a Balkan whirl of a lead single in the form of A Bar in Amsterdam, which manages to reference Denmark, and Norwegian passports. Trying to take cues from the music leads to similarly dizzying disorientation: cabaret theatrics, weepy Dixie Chicks-country, carnival clowning, and an instrumental that resembles Flight of the Bumblebee adapted by Danny Elfman are only a fraction of its baffling variety: throw in nonsensical doo-wop, gypsy-chic, Shakespeare’s Sister goth-balladry, cutesy polka and more and you’re left with an album that all but defies categorisation. It’s like tuning in to an edition of the Eurovision Song Contest shorn of its cheesiest outreaches, a simile which might help subjectively answer the opening question: Katzenjammer are either your worst nightmare, or excitingly broad-minded – unafraid to mix up genres and spit in the face of fashion.[Chris Buckle]