Monday, September 3, 2018

FRISKT VATTEN – De é vi (YTF, 1978) / En svensk tiger (A Disc, 1978) / Lee Highway (A Disc, 1982)

Hailing from working class city of Södertälje, Friskt Vatten was a rather succesful outfit with connections to the Social Democratic sphere – two of their records were released on A Disc, and they got quite a few gigs through ABF (the Workers' Educational Association). Singer, guitarist, flugelhorn player and Sweden's best kept secret Göran Wiklund shed some light on the band's political afilliations when I interviewed him in 2017:

– We saw ourselves as a progg band, although perhaps in the second division except when it came to fees. You can always debate ideology vs. money, but what the heck, we never felt ashamed and we were never close to what Mikael Wiehe and Björn Afzelius [of Hoola Bandoola Band] charged. We always got decent pay when we toured and made records, much thanks to ABF. I must admit it was pretty cool to play to large audiences who knew our songs and sang along with us!

– We were hired by Kulturnämnden (The Cultural Board) to make a show about school. So we did, and we played in schools regionally. We gigged at Social Democratic Youth Association meetings several times, and eventually got signed to the labour movements' own label A Disc.

Friskt Vatten also collaborated with the then Södertälje based independent theatre group Musikteatergruppen Oktober.
De é vi (YTF, 1977)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: *

Göran Wiklund had not yet joined Friskt Vatten when they released their debut album in 1977. The album is mostly conventional pop/rock. Tobias Petterson compares them to Rekyl in his progg encyclopedia, and that's not entirely wrong, except that Rekyl had a greater amount of The Rolling Stones in their music whereas ”De é vi” sometimes leans more towards Contact's and Norrbottens Järn's jollier moments. Still, the progg factor is low.
En svensk tiger (A Disc, 1978)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: *

Recruiting Göran Wiklund was a wise move because he's one of the few G-R-E-A-T singers on the progg scene and one of extremely few with a bit of genuine soul in his voice. (The lack of truly good progg singers is conspicuous. How many of those are there? Ten? Probably down to a five. Perhaps less.) Here he's best heard on ”En gång förut” and ”Människor som inte lyssnar”. ”En svensk tiger” is an overall more mature effort than the debut LP with better songs, but still not interesting enough. Tomas Ernvik (of Christian band Vatten) appears on guitar.

Lee Highway (A Disc, 1982)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: *

After a non-album 45 in 1980, Friskt Vatten returned to the album format in 1982 with their third and final album. There's more blues to this album than their previous ones – the drummer here is the excellent Stefan 'Stoffe' Sundlöf who was in several of blues master Sven Zetterberg's bands, from Telge Blues to Chicago Express. However, the best feature is – again – Wiklund's vocals, especially on album highlights ”Ombudsman” and ”Skulle kunna berätta”. This is Friskt Vatten's best album.

Thanks to Göran Wiklund for sharing memrories!

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