English vocals, Swedish vocals
International relevance: ***
I
thought long and hard about how and where to fit this one in. There's
no album to link it to as a postscript, and lumping it in with other singles seemed
awkward too as it's such a solitary beast. So finally I decided it
deserves a post of its own. But first, a little history lesson.
Stry
Terrarie (née Anders Sjöholm) roared his way into music with punk
band Kriminella Gitarrer (=”criminal guitars”) in 1978. Often
heralded as the first Swedish punk band, they made an immediate
impression with their debut single ”Vårdad klädsel”, which to
this day remain perhaps the most violent and abrasive assault on your
eardrums ever recorded in Sweden – it's so explosive that it has
earned international recognition through its inclusion on one of the
volumes of the ”Bloodstains” punk compilation series. Several
acclaimed singles followed (although none had quite the same
ballistic impact as ”Vårdad klädsel”), but it was a track off
1979 various artists compilation ”Svensk pop” that draw ”normal
people's” attention to them. When ”Knugen skuk” was played on
radio show ”Ny våg” it was immediately banned, contemplating as
it did the nature of the reproductive organ belonging to the King of
Sweden.
Following the disbanding of Kriminella
Gitarrer in 1979, the musically restless Stry Terrarie initiated several different bands, all of them
excellent: Besökarna (”the visitors”), Stry & Stripparna
(”Stry & the strippers”), Garbochock and – Blödarna (”the
bleeders”). It's often hard to discern where one band ended and the
next one began; it's not unfair to say their line-ups are in a
continuous fluxus state. What can be determined though, is that
Terrarie gravitated towards a much darker sound in many of those
bands, far removed from the foundations-rattling ferocity of
Kriminella Gitarrer. You can for instance sense an air of The Doors
in Garbochock, but his psychedelic leanings never manifested
themselves as succesfully and profoundly as in Blödarna (which
really was the seed for Garbochock)..
With only one single
released plus a lo-fi contribution to the exquisitely rare V/A cassette-only
release "Eldbegängelse", Blödarna are an almost mythological parenthesis. At least
until you hear ”Diggar ditt hål” (="digging your hole"). Recorded live on stage, the twelve minute track moves slowly like menacing shadows in the dark. The
lyrics switch between Swedish and English, but the vocals are barely
audible anyway, and often come through like paranoid yelps among the
persistent, droning organ and the piercing guitars zig-zagging their
way between Television's brothers-in-arms Tom Verlaine & Richard
Lloyd and a malicious Robbie Krieger. The creeping mood won't change
until two minutes before the end when the song slowly speeds up to an
almost ”Psychotic Reaction”-like frenzy with Terrarie definitely
going over the edge vocally.
It
still sounds sick, twisted and bizarre: a true gem,
a classic, a masterpiece, a milestone. Is it progg? Is it psych? I
don't know, but it grew out of the very same soil as once Älgarnas Trädgård, Träd Gräs & Stenar, and
Arbete & Fritid's ”Petrokemi”, it only flourished differently.
Full single playlist (Bandcamp)
No comments:
Post a Comment