release date: Aug. 1981
format: vinyl (IRMG 3) / digital (10 x File, FLAC) (2005 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,68]
producer: Scatterbrain, Anders Lind
label: Irmgardz... / Glorious Records - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 1. "Neo-Love Tango" - 3. "Vatican Reggae" - 4. "Crosses of Verdun" - 6. "Ice Age" - 8. "Insect Danger" - 10. "Keep Dancing!"
Studio album debut by Danish band Scatterbrain originally released on Irmgardz... The band here consists of founding members Jesper Siberg on vocals, keyboards & electronic percussion, Hilmer Hassig on guitars & synths, Jens Erik Mose on bass & synths, and Morten Torp on vocals & synths. Despite only releasing two albums Scatterbrain has quite a substantial legacy in Danish music history, where the band stands as forerunners and as the first actual synth-rock band coming out on the punk rock scene.
In retrospect, the band appears influenced by Joy division and to a what was perceived as a growing art punk scene at the time counting artist like Magazine, Visage, Gary Numan, and Ultravox and apart from these musical contemporaries it also seems that artists like King Crimson, Brian Eno, and Kraftwerk should be included amongst the band's natural sources of inspiration, but also artistic ideas from visual arts and authors, the band appears influenced by cold war politics and a de-humanisation of scociety which is also reflected in some of the aforementioned artists' music (also with bonds to David Bowie and Lou Reed) and which was the same starting point of contemporary Danish author Michael Strunge and his poetry, e.g. "Skrigerne" (1980) and "Vi folder drømmens faner ud" (1981).
Keep Dancing came out to positive reviews but the band and its music didn't attract a wider audience and Scatterbrain was first and foremost a cult-like band. In retrospect, however, Keep dancing and the band's second album Mountains Go Rhythmic (1984) both stands as highly original releases with the debut as an album that has found status as a cornerstone in modern Danish rock-history.
At the time, I listened to the debut, and I kept an illegal copy of the record, which I both found challenging but also quite fascinating, although, I also saw it as strange and too experimental for my liking.
Recommended.
