VARIOUS ARTISTS – Swedish Meatballs Vols. 1 & 2: The Psychedelic Hard Rock Underground 1970-1977 (Subliminal Sounds, 2022)

 
Featured artists: Älgarna / Högtryck / Styv Kuling / Rabatt / Strike / Jan & Bert / Frozen Fire / Fire / Tranz / Paul Edoh's Class Breakers / Mogens Klyvare Hose Band / Ohlssons Grova / I Blomm
Swedish vocals, English vocals, instrumental
International relevance ***

Long before these two compilations were released, I was hoping that someone would get their hands dirty and get the work done. Who else would but Subliminal Sounds? Two volumes of Swedish 70s hard rock singles ranging from the rare to the impossible, some names completely unknown to me and most likely to a lot of others too. Some of it has been available in crappy rips on Youtube, but who the hell were Jan & Bert (Resonans), Paul Edoh's Class Breakers, Mogens Klyvare Hose Band and I Blomm? Among the better known names I spot Älgarna, Rabatt, Högtryck and Ohlssons Grova.

Released as two separate volumes but they should really be considered one entity. The first volume covers 1970 to 1977, the second 1971 to 1977, i.e. the golden age of Swedish hard rock, the years before squealing heavy metal washed over Sweden from the UK. Not to say that there wasn't any good heavy metal during the NWOBHM era and the Swedish counterpart FWOSHM (the First Wave Of Swedish Heavy Metal) because there was, but if I have to choose I'd go for the pre-HM years. (Those who want to dip their toes in the more obscure waters of FWOSHM might want to try ”Jobcentre Rejects, Vol. 4”.)

As always the case with comps like these, there are tracks you'd rather have swapped for something else, but the duds are few here and not that terrible so it's not really something to get hung up about. I'm more than delighted to see both tracks from Rabatt's exceedingly rare 1971 single here, ”X:et” and ”Look Till You Find”, which also happens to be the most psychedelic sounding on offer. Älgarna's ”Crowned King” sounds almost like Nature on a dark night (and better than Nature if you ask me), while Jan & Bert's ”Kan ljuset vända åter” is a tasty blend of psych, heavy rock, West Coast singing, jazz and progressive. Ohlssons Grova's ”Strange Infection” is a marvellous piece of blues-inflected heavy rock, while ”Mäskaktigt” by I Blomm is a proto-doom instrumental that hints at Black Sabbath and the underworld shadings of Bobby Liebling's Pentagram. I could go on naming names, but you get the drift: These are two volumes unmissable to anyone into 70s heavy rock, and to others as well.

Full album playlist (both volumes)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - ...Hör en susande vind (Viking, 1973)

 
Featured artists: Monica Nielsen / Bertil Norström / Stig Ring med Do-Re-Mi-kören / Lasse Bagge med trio / Medlemmar ur Sveriges Radios symfoniorkester
Swedish vocals, English vocals
International relevance: *

Included mainly as a warning, as the album might seem like a progg album. But it's only thematically related to progg – the music displays no progg credentials whatsoever unless you count the presence of Monica Nielsen who appears on several similarily styled albums from the 70s including one with Tommy Körberg (Solar Plexus, second incarnation of Made In Sweden). Members of the Swedish Radio's symphony orchestra provide extensive backing. The songs are drawn from the songbook of the labour movement which means you get two (!) more versions of ”The International” plus Swedish takes on ”There's Power In A Union” and ”Which Side Are You On”. ”We Shall Overcome” also slips in seamlessly into the predictable mix. The Viking label was a commercial imprint, best remembered for having put out two Lee Hazlewood albums in the 70s plus one by Hawkey Franzén.

No links found

HAI & TOPSY – Jag sjunger ej om kungar, jag sjunger ej om mord... De fattigas visor (YTF, 1974)

Swedish lyrics
International relevance: *

Hai & Topsy had a rather colourful background. Hai, real name Heinrich Frankl, was born in Wiesbaden in Germany to Jewish parents. He managed to flee from Germany to Sweden only a few days before the outbreak of the Second World War. (His parents were later killed in Auschwitz.) Here, he acquainted other Jewish refugees and quickly learnt a number of traditional Jiddisch songs from them.

Hai recieved a monthly grant from the Swedish quakers in the 40s, and thus he was able to attend Stockholm's premiere art school Konstfack where he met Topsy, real name Gunnel Wahlström. They soon became a couple and began performing as a musical duo in restaurants and other places welcoming their music. They became a pretty well-known act over time, and in the 60s they teamed up with the ever-present Kjell Westling along with other domestic folk musicians. Hai & Topsy's record debut was already in 1959 with a six track EP on the Cupol label, only marking the start of a long career spawning numerous of releases in various formats.

The politically oriented ”Jag sjunger ej om kungar, jag sjunger ej om mord...” (”I sing not of kings, I sing not of murder”) with subtitle ”De fattigas visor” (”songs of the poor”) was released in 1974. There's not much to distinguish it from Hai & Topsy's other albums, meaning it's chock full of traditional songs performed in the most rosy-cheeked, jolly-jolly, thumbs-up-all-day-long kind of way. They were part of the zeitgest, but their personal stories are much more intriguing than ever their music.

Full album playlist

JANNE GOLDMAN ROCK UND ROLL GRUPPE – Janne Goldman Rock Und Roll Gruppe (R&P, 1980)

Swedish vocals
International relevance: *

Janne Goldman is one of the unsung figures of the progg era, simply because he never was an out-and-out progg artist. But there was often something freewheeling about his music, even at its most traditional sounding, that has me including him here (previously as one half of Gin & Grappo).

This album was his first under his own name. Along with his backing band Rock Und Roll Gruppe he indeed delivers a rocking album with a certain seedy vibe that at times reminds me of Ensamma Hjärtan at their sleaziest. It's definitely not to everyone's tastes being very much in the straight-ahead rock mould, and it's not an album I long to hear over and over again, but I have to admit that the music's scruffy demeanor is oddly appealing and entertaining once I put it on. Even more surprising then that Clarence Öwferman is credited as 'conductor' on the front cover – Öwferman later became a star producer and hit it really big with his appallingly slick and bombastic production work for Roxette!

Regnrockar och pisspottor

SKROTBANDET – Övervintring (Nacksving, 1979)

 
Instrumental
International relevance: **

Skrotbandet's first entry to this blog was with their second album ”Afrocarib” which is quite different to this one, their first. While their infatuation with Latin and Caribbean rhythms is on display already here, this is more of a semi-fusion jazz effort with more groove than what your average in vitro fertilized jazz fusion album usually musters up. Maybe because ”Övervintring” is recorded live without having the spontaniety scrubbed off in the studio. It's still a bit too far into trapeze artist jazz for me (I particularily find the guitar solos pretty annoying), but it must be said that the music nevertheless cooks with a fair bit of enthusiasm and joy of playing. And it's better than "Afrocarib".

No links found.

FABRIKSFLICKORNA – Makten och härligheten (MNW, 1980)

Swedish vocals
International relevance: *

It's hardly a secret that there's an endless stream of absolutely terrible albums in the field of progg, and what unites them is often the politics. It's message over music, and if it's music from a theatrical play with an agenda, they're usually so bad they're bound to give you a slight brain damage. I still suffer from having heard Bruksteatern, and I doubt I will ever fully recover from that traumatic experience.

”Fabriksflickorna – Makten och härligheten” (”the factory girls – the power and the glory”) falls into that same category, and dealing with the factory seamstresses situation in Sweden at the same, it comes with the mandatory feminist angle. The music is written by Gunnar Edander, best known for ”Jösses flickor”, and performers include feminist stahlwarts Suzanne Osten (who wrote the actual play) and Lena Söderblom. That should tell you all exactly what it sounds like: the one perky tune after the other sung by too many voices at once in the bloated righteous spirit of collectivity. I don't hear even one passable track here; if there is one faintly decent song among the lot, it's immediately ruined by the suffocating atmosphere of pompous smugness.

No links found