Swedish vocals
International relevance: **
This is an album I've been eager to
hear for years, but being in the three-figure league pricewise, it's
not one you easily stumble upon (or can afford if you, like me, are
on a tight budget). It's been conspicuously absent from the Internet
as well. As the years went by, my hopes for a true gem only got
higher, but I was afraid it would in fact be another Axelsson dump of
incompetence. Thankfully, it isn't near Axelsson's unfathomable
crappiness at all, and despite its dark lyrical topics, it's not a
fright trip into the mental abyss like Stephen David Heitkotter
either. Instead, it's a surprisingly accessible and well-crafted
piece of work.
”Ångest” means ”anxiety” in English,
and the lyrics deal with the insufficient mental health care system
from an indeed personal standpoint. Knowing the lyrics capture
firsthand experiences of depression and anxiety, they hit harder than
if they were only an outsider's proclamations to make easy political
points. Better still is that Ekman was a talented songwriter and a
good enough singer who also managed to assemble a line-up of able
students from Stockholm's distinguished Adolf Fredrik's music school to get
his ideas across. The arrangements often have a jazzy feel but with
its acoustic framework including flute, sax and upright bass, they
never fall into the dreaded fusion trap. Some songs have a Latin
touch as opening track ”Väntan”, while ”Besök hos en
allmänpraktiserande läkare (specialitet nervösa besvär)” is
decidedly folksy. Tobias Peterson compares Ekman to Ronny Åström in
his progg encyclopedia, but to be honest, I don't hear Åström as
much as I hear someone like Mikael Ramel thanks to the album's
versatile musicality and Ekman's melodic sense. The album was
recorded live-in-the-studio and has a highly appealing organic
well-balanced sound rather unusal to private pressings – the
richness of the upright bass is particularly sweet.
”Ångest”
had a run of only 100 copies in 1978 and has never been repressed.
Most of them were given away to friends, but a batch of overstock
copies was later discovered and sold with a newly produced booklet
authorized by Ekman himself, as the original insert was missing in
some of the covers. To keep the original manufacturing costs to a
minimum, the album came in sleeves from other records turned inside
out, and were re-glued and stamped with Roger Ekman's name along with
the album title.
As the album's raison
d'être is the lyrics, an important aspect is lost to
non-Swedes so it might not appear as urgent to foreigners, but with
Ekman's knack for songwriting and the empathic backing musicians,
it's still an album several notches above the standard homemade progg
album. Despite ”Ångest's” lyrical concerns, it's a beautiful
album to listen to and one in a crying need for a proper reissue.
Until then you might want to check out this website
in case any copies of the re-circulated original are still available.
Full album
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