Instrumental, English vocals, Swedish
vocals
International relevance: ***
The batch review of the albums by the various incarnations of Träd, Gräs Och Stenar's is apparently one of my most 'controversial' blog entries as I don't share the automatic reverence for the band. I don't submit to any unreflected worship of sacred cows, and TG&S are the most sacred of them all, but I still think most of what they did was simplistic and inept for its own sake. There are flashes of brilliance, especially during their earliest Pärson Sound days, but not enough to justify their general status as sanctified untouchables.
Of course there's been a number of archival TG&S releases, most of them simply confirming what their original albums already told us. Again, the most striking exception is Subliminal Sounds' 2CD assemblage of 1967-68 recordings showing that the band actually could extract some real energy out of their drones if they wanted to, not only squelch through sleepy one-chord lethargy. And that's where the 5 LP box set ”Remains” comes into the picture. Two of the discs are original albums "Sov gott Rose-Marie" and "Hemåt" but three of them are dedicated to previously unreleased (or mostly unreleased) material, and it's those that I focus on here.
Some of it is still just more of the same, but several of those unissued recordings
are in fact much better than what ended up on their proper albums. There's some sloppy slosh here too, but pieces such as ”Cellodron” (”Cello
Spear”), and ”Hemåt” (”Homeward”) – once it catches
steam – are very good. As is ”Hes häst” (”Hoarse Horse”)
which conjures up the spirit of Czech band Plastic People
Of The Universe.
It's hardly surprising that "Remains” is inconsistent both in
terms of musical and aural quality, but the good bits are excellent
and make me wonder why (International) Harvester/Träd, Gräs &
Stenar just couldn't produce any album uniformly on that level
instead of making a point of playing below their capacity.
Full album playlist (Spotify)
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