AUTUMN BREEZE – Demo Tapes (MyRecords, 1977-78) / På radio 1978 (MyRecords, 1978)

Swedish vocals, English vocals, instrumental
International relevance ***/***

When record labels failed to show any interested in Autumn Breeze's album ”Höstbris”, they released it themselves in 1979. When they reformed around 2010, they stuck to self-releasing their music, and have now several albums out on their own label MyRecords. But a compilation of demo recordings made in 1977-1978 appeared as a CD-r already in 2009. Alternately entitled ”Demo Tapes” and ”Casette Tapes” (sic!), it features not only early versions of songs ending up on ”Höstbris”, but also tracks that never made it to the LP. Some songs should have; I'd gladly have swapped the dreadful white-boy-in-an-office funk of ”U P A” and the stale disco of ”Ugglans nattvisir” for the eight minutes of ”Nr. 646” off the demo tape. The main difference between the finished versions and those takes are, as you could expect, these are rougher round the edges. Somewhat closer to 70's hard rock, they sound less refined and that's beneficial. And best of all, they don't have those cheesy synths that are all over ”Höstbris”. True those demos have their share of clumsy playing, but what they lose in precision they gain in vividness.

The second archival release, also a CD-r, features a session recorded for Swedish Radio's local Karlstad branch in 1978. Those tapes fall somewhere between the '78 demos and the '79 album. They still sound a bit under-rehearsed with some rather comic fumbles here and there, and knowing the session would be broadcast, they sound a bit tense.

Swedish Radio has always been famous for getting a great live sound, but for whatever reason the fidelity here is peculiarly muddy which obviously is a drawback. I don't know if some primitive post-production fiddling took place before being released, but there's a reverb here and there which sounds as if it was added later to cover up shortcomings on the original tape. Instead it emphasizes them. Also, the bass must have been boosted prior to release which further adds to the unbalanced and slightly messy sound.

As you can see, I much prefer the demo disc. It's not perfect, but it's imperfect in the right way. I'd even go as far as to say it's better than ”Höstbris” thanks to the rawness and energy it radiates. 

Too bad about the terrible amateurish cover art for both discs though. Somebody failed the Photoshop class...  

Demo Tapes/Casette Tapes full album playlist
På radio 1978 full album playlist