mungolian jet set

By Danny Turner

Mungolian Jet Set may well be one of the world’s hardest bands to pin down and decipher. Far from being actual jet setters or hailing the central Asian country of Mongolia, as the name may suggest, Mungolian Jet Set are actually Norwegian DJ Pal “Strangefruit” Nyhus and his collaborators Knut Sævik and Reidar Skår.

Mixing jazz, disco, afro-beats, techno and folk with a hefty dose of tongue in cheek prog-rock epicness, Mongolian Jet Set make unclassifiable and often conceptually insane records. Add to this a whole range of pseudo mystical vernacular coupled with a load of crazy far Eastern imagery and you get one of the most un-pigeon-holeable groups on the planet.

Their latest release is a collection of their finest remixes including their re-works of tracks from Lindstrøm, The Shortwave Set and Pizzy Yelliot – whose cover of Bob Marley’s ‘Could You Be Loved’ is nothing short of deranged. ...

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Letter to Norwegian Embassy, London, January 9th 2008.

To whom it may concern,

I wish to express my concern about an unprecedented menace that has emerged from your country and is currently infecting the youth of Britain with unstoppable veracity: Mungolians. These layabouts, cornerboys, soapdodgers, hippies, spivs and individuals of dubious mental fortitude
and questionable intentions have begun thrusting their elongated and throbbing remixes into the unprotected underbelly of our youth.

Indeed, it comes as no surprise that these loutish young men model themselves after the Mongol invaders.

Furthermore, it has been brought to my attention that these disco delinquents have desecrated one of their own national treasures, the beloved Sami Joik singer Mari Boine Persen. Placing her exquisite ethnic voice in a jarring juxtaposition with the worst excesses of what passes for music these days, these would-be Khans have created an altogether frightening melange of sounds encompassing the full gamut of the hallucinatory and ...
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