Mora Träsk (Mora Träsk Musik, 1974)
Swedish vocals, instrumental
International relevance: *
Nowadays Mora Träsk is best known for
their children's albums made as a duo, but when this Gävle outfit
started out in 1971 they were a five piece rock band. Their album
debut appeared in 1974, and like all their albums released on their
own label Mora Träsk Musik.
A primitive sounding album, mixing
humourous folk pop with country and rock & roll pastiches. The
best tracks are all instrumental – ”Garanterat intellektuell”,
”Inge brådska”, ”Sputnik” and ”Nergången”. More of
those would have been preferrable to balance up the album's
predominant silliness.
Mestrud (Mora Träsk Musik, 1975)
Swedish vocals, English vocals
International relevance: **
Their third album (following ”Plays
Bach” released earlier in 1975), more serious in tone and decidedly
the one with the highest prog aspirations. Their best album by far
but still not very good. ”Children of the Time” (the only one
with English lyrics) is OK in a Crosby, Still, Nash and especially
Young vein. That one and ”Mestrud II” feature extended guitar
solos that might please some. Sleeve colour variations exist.
Rocken kommer från Gävle (Mora Träsk
Musik, 1978)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: *
A breakthrough of sorts as ”Rocken
kommer från Gävle” brought Mora Träsk to a larger audience.
Perhaps the record buying public had grown tired with the pretentions
and seriousness that had become more and more prevalent in progg
music in general which probably says more about where progg was at
the time than Mora Träsk's qualities... Here they sound almost like
a local version of Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, with 'fun' lyrics and joke
songs. The best, actually the only reasonably good tracks are
the folk pastiche ”Herr Tidman” and album closer ”Gonatt”.
Joe Hills sånger (Mora Träsk Musik,
1979)
Swedish vocals, English vocals, spoken
word
Instrumental relevance: *
Instrumental relevance: *
Like Mora Träsk, American working
class hero Joe Hill originally came from Gävle, so in a way, it was
a natural thing for them to release a Joe Hill tribute album, released in co-operation with the local Joe Hill Foundation in conjuction with the singer's 100th birtday anniversary. It's a
tad better than the anemic ”Joe Hill lever!!!” by Pierre Ström
et consortes, with some country flavours, but it's still strikingly
unexciting, only relevant to collectors of Joe Hill interpretations.
If there are any such collectors.
Play Off (Mora Träsk Musik, 1980)
Swedish vocals, instrumental
Instrumental relevance: *
This was the end of Mora Träsk as a
rock band, and it features some of their most convincing work in that
area. Which doesn't say much because it still sounds like joke music,
no matter how much blues or punk they add to the songs. ”Vykort
från Gävle” and the instrumental title track have some heavy
metal influenced guitar work if anyone cares.
It's hard to take
Mora Träsk seriously, and moving to children's music was probably the best they could do. As a rock band for grown-ups they're best ignored.
from Mora Träsk
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