The Broken Face #10

Were you aware that Mats Gustafsson, the celebrated discaholic and longtime free sax player & collaborator, published a rock-adjacent fanzine called The Broken Face from his Trosa, Sweden home in the late 90s/early 00s? Well good, if you weren’t – because it’s not true. The Broken Face was put together by a different Mats Gustafsson, I’ve been informed since my first draft of this post. How embarrassing, and what are the chances.

You’d almost certainly need to have been marinating in the outsider/experimental and limited-pressing rock underworld of the time, and connected enough in that milieu to have found your way to a copy. We’re talking about the free-folk, noise, psych and abstract-laden scenes bubbling up around Terrastock events and micro-labels like Fonal, Camera Obscura, Spirit of Orr, Audible Hiss and Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers. I’ve talked about ‘zines from this era that trod similar ground like Astronauts, Deep Water, Gold Soundz and Luggage before, but we’re just getting to The Broken Face now. 

A few years after this early 2001 issue that insular but incredibly diverse & burgeoning world would really get its international sea legs and some form of journalistic reckoning, but The Broken Face was deeply embedded with it all quite earlier than that. Far as I can gather, there was a co-editor named Lee Jackson from Texas; both he and Gustafsson do their top record lists for the year 2000, and both have Alastair Galbraith’s Cry sitting at the big #1. The mag all kicks off with a long and very revealing interview with Glenn Jones of Cul De Sac, who’s exceptionally articulate and concise in answering what appears to be emailed questions. Most things here are email interviews, almost certainly. No problem – it’s mostly what I myself do to this day to prevent superfluous human interaction. This is followed by an early talk with Matt Valentine of Tower Recordings. “Tower Recordings are a band that didn’t win me over instantly”, says Mats – whew, you can say that again (and again). 

Gustafsson’s uncovered some stones here that only true diggers and obscurists rave about, or so I assume. There’s an interview with a German husband and wife “mystical psychedelic forest folk” called Fit & Limo, going strong since the early 80s, and who sound like a band very much off the grid & off the world’s radar and liking it that way. They claim to be influenced primarily by Popol Vuh and the Incredible String Band. I think I probably need to hear them. There’s another interview with Jon DeRosa – also a new discovery. See what you learn when you spend quality time with old fanzines instead of with your friends and family?

The Broken Face team files a Terrastock Four report from Seattle in 2000, which took place a year after I moved away from said city. I’d missed the one in San Francisco before that as well…because I was living in Seattle. This one featured Doug Yule, Moe Tucker, Major Stars, Ghost, Charalambides, Wellwater Conspiracy, Six Organs of Admittance, Bardo Pond and a “supergroup in wigs” w/ Damon & Naomi + Wayne & Kate from Major Stars called Children of the Rainbow. You know, I’d have probably checked it out, but when I left Seattle my favorite band there was The Kent 3 by a mile, so it’s probable my head was elsewhere, drowning in craft beer & garage punk, and not in weed & magick. I didn’t even hear Major Stars’ music for at least another ten years (!). 

More than half the mag is reviews – and long ones at that. It’s clear both here and in some of the aforementioned mags that Hall of Fame were getting some deserved notice – I need to listen to that Siltbreeze thing again, as I truly cottoned onto this band in a way that never clicked for me with Tower Recordings. It turns out there was a Pip Proud studio album that came out in 2000 – who the fuck knew? Everything reviewed is apparently chosen for congruence with the reviewers’ tastes; I’ve yet to uncover any invective slung at a record more hostile than “this might not be my favorite from them, but…”. Now I’ve got to research how many more underground record collectors named Mats Gustafsson there are in Sweden and how frequently they’re confused for each other by greenhorns like me.