Swedish vocals, English vocals
International relevance: *
A very obscure and almost entirely undocumented cassette-only album, privately issued in 500 homemade copies in 1978, with songs written from 1974 up to the release date. Torbjörn ”Tobbe” Rüsslander was a singer/songwriter and a pretty good guitar player who recorded these twelve songs in his rehearsal room.
Recorded on a 4-track TEAC machine, the album shares the sound characteristics heard on several American private pressings from around the same time. Although the portastudio has its obvious limitations, I've always liked the dryness of it, as if the music was registered onto a chunk of wood. Rüsslander is quite good at using the technical limitations to his advantage.
Most of his songs are melodic, and a couple of them have a more pronounced proggish feel, like ”Fredagsnatt” and ”En vän i nöden”, the latter nicely decorated with understated flute lines. Otherwise, the progg feel lies mainly with the sincere DIY vibe, not unlike Per Forssell.
I can't quite put my finger on what, but there's something about ”Tobbe med egna sånger” that occasionally reminds me of U.S. underground legend D.R. Hooker whose 1972 album ”The Truth” is highly regarded by psych fans and collectors, even if Rüsslander doesn't have quite the same off-beat outsider vibe. At any rate, I enjoy listening to it. It may have its shortcomings, but those are overshadowed by the merits.
Rüsslander later re-emerged briefly with his band Zvenska Muskler who released one single in 1981. He still performs, and he also works a guitar teacher.
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