ERIK ASCHAN – Erik Aschan (E. Aschan 73, 1973)

Swedish vocals, English vocals

International relevance: **

It took me a while to realize what my real problem with Erik Aschan is. He's part talented and part delusional – he probably holds the world record of mentioning his own name most times on a record cover, but although egomaniacs can be annoying, they're not necessarily scary. Then I realized that listening to Aschan is like talking to a friendly stranger in the street and suddenly catching a dark flash in his eye that gives you an uneasy feeling you can't quite explain. Not that I think Aschan is a violent man or anything, on the contrary, I think he's Mr. Peace himself, but something just feels off and it makes me feel awkward. 

This is Erik Aschan's first of six privately pressed albums up to 1986, and unlike several of his later ones an all acoustic effort. A couple of tracks are quite good like ”Om du inte fanns” and ”En sommarvind”, the latter a bit similar to Roy Harper around ”Folkjokeopus”. Others are melodically indistinct and just samy strummy which make me lose attention. And then there's ”Vilse i stora skogen”, ten very self-indulgent minutes that the album would have done better without. It's a thousand times better than John-Erik Axelsson, but a Kjell Höglund Aschan is not.

Full album