Instrumental, Swedish vocals, English vocals
This is one of the most striking obscurities from the Swedish Jesus underground. Still largely undiscovered, two tracks were included on Subliminal Sound's excellent ”Frälst!” comp, so I suspect it's only a matter of time until prices skyrockets. (One guy on Discogs already tries to cram a laughable €300 out of it – yeah, right, good luck with that.) Until then, it's still possible for a lucky guy to pick it up for peanuts in local charity shops around Sweden.
Apart from being recognized by Subliminal Sounds, the appearance of Björn Famne immediately piqued my curiousity. Famne 's finest moment is ”Vampire”, an outrageous full frontal fuzz attack originally featured on his eponymous 1975 Rasp Records EP and later revived on ”Who Will Buy These Wonderful Evils Vol. 3”. Those who because of that and Sambandet's two ”Frälst!” tracks expect a hard psych freak-out from their sole LP ”Gud är” (”God is”) from 1976 are sure to be disappointed though. As a whole, this is a different beast – but an intriguing one.
Those in the know consider ”Gud är”
as one of the finest Xian albums ever to come out of Sweden, and it
doesn't take much to get its appeal. It's much harder to pinpoint its
style though, as it constantly changes. ”I Am Free” is a
strangely prog-induced track with quacking wah-wah guitar, while
”Go(o)d News” is a bizarre kind of tripped-out studio exotica,
with no similarity whatsoever to anything else on the album. (No
wonder these two tracks ended up on ”Frälst!”) Unusual to a
religious album, a large part of ”Gud är” is all instrumental.
Some tracks remind me of a less trippy and more flute-folky Älgarnas
Trädgård (but I might be just about the only person in the whole wide world to sense that), while ”Don't
Be A Loser” could have been a Gabor Szabo outtake with its
clean-sounding easy listening styled guitar work and feather-light
beat. ”Happy” makes me think of a Gentle Giant getting drunker by
the minute on Swedish schnapps while trying to play a sunlit jazz
waltz. ”Vi tycker om att sjunga” translates to ”we like to sing” but is in fact another short instrumental which sounds as
if it could have been the theme music from a 70s children show no-one
ever saw. ”I Wanna Be More” in turn is Sambandet's stab at but of
course warped through a prism of female vocals private pressing UK
folk. And so on.
”Gud är” is one of those albums so
kaleidoscopic in style it's hard to understand what exactly the
band was aiming for. Definitely inconsistent, but the inconsistency
is also what gives it its weird charm and works to its advantage.
Recorded in the semi-mysterious/semi-legendary Falks Studio in small
city Eksjö, it has a ”professional low-budget” sound that goes
well along with the decidedly mixed skills of the performers. (Falks Studio might even be the label, but who knows.) Björn
Famne is a driven guitarslinger (and shows off his acoustic guitar
chops on the renaissance sounding instrumental ”Bortom”), while
drummer Kjell Ljunggren doesn't bother a sometimes sloppy beat.
The wild mood and style changes makes
for a truly original listening experience, and once you've put it on,
it's hard to turn it off as you never quite grow accustomed to its
bizarre versatility. Hear it ten times, and you're still not prepared
for what comes around the corner. Like I just said, I've no idea what
Sambandet were trying to achieve anything but whatever lept to their
minds at any given moment, but in the end, the possible lack of a
proper plan almost appears visionary. It's a one-of-a-kind album no
matter how you look at it, and if you decide to strictly view it as a
Xian album designed to woe the Lord, it only gets even stranger and
even more confusing.
Is it a masterpiece? Not necessarily,
but it's sure an album you don't hear everyday but one you definitely
want to hear more than once in your lifetime. If only to find it out.
I Am Free
Go(o)d News
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