FRANS MOSSBERG – Tystnader (Piglet, 1982)

  
Swedish vocals
International relevance: *

Singer and guitarist Frans Mossberg was part of the Uppsala scene centered around Sub-gruppen and Störningen in the mid/late 70s, but it wasn't until 1982 his lone solo album appeared on the mysterious Piglet label. ”Tystnader” is a bad album made even worse by the digital reissue's appalling brickwall mastering. What was previously just an album of subpar singer/songwriter stuff has now become a bloody chore to sit through thanks to the ravaged sound. There's a certain place in hell for people doing this to music, be it bad or good.

Full album playlist for self-harmers

AMERINDIOS – Ditt skrik är min sång – Tu grito es mi canto (Amalthea, 1978)

Other languages
International relevance: *

Amerindios was a Chilean duo consisting of Julio Numhauser and Mario Salazar, the former a founding member of Quilapayún who also had a number of Swedish releases. ”Ditt skrik är min sång” was originally released in Chile in 1973 with full title ”Tu Sueño Es Mi Sueño, Tu Grito Es Mi Canto”. It is in the Nueva Cancion style -- protest songs with light dashes of sort-of-but-not-really folk rock. Often backed by acoustic guitar and a singer or two sounding both seriously pissed off (for good reasons) and at the same time curiously happy. 

Original Chilean cover

But there are moments of surprise here, such as the short organ-laced instrumental ”Valparaiso 4 A.M.” with a slightly hazy pseudo-psychedelic vibe, and the stinging fuzz guitar in ”Cueca Beat” like straight out of a primitive garage rock single from Nowhereburg, USA 1966. I didn't see that one coming! And whatever that bizarre instrument in ”La Cervecita” is I don't know, but it sounds like a zither recorded while the producer changed the speed of the tape while recording, making that cosmic zither go WHOOOP and WHEEESH. 

All in all, a pretty good album in its style.

Full album playlist

PANTA REI – The Naked Truth (Mellotronen, 2012; rec. 1973)

English vocals, instrumental

International relevance: ***

The live session included in ”Progglådan” was a welcome addition to Panta Rei's uneven yet worthwhile album – the only thing they released – and their small output was further expanded when Mellotronen put out ”The Naked Truth” in 2012. Four tracks recorded in concert in Kummelnäs near Stockholm 1972 , with another '72 excerpt from a show in Panta Rei's hometown Uppsala. The Kummelnäs tape shows Panta Rei at their vivid best and has songs not on their album (including one Chick Corea composition), but the sound quality is questionable. I'm not too sensitive when it comes to the fidelity of archival releases, but the mono sound here is flat, and the lack of dynamics doesn't really do Panta Rei's intricate music justice. The Uppsala track is in even lesser fidelity, with a rather intrusive distortion on especially the vocals.

Mellotronen's original idea was to reissue the original album, but Portuguese label Golden Pavillion beat them to it, so ”The Naked Truth” is a kind of 'plan B' solution. I'm not sure if there even exists any better sounding tapes of the original Panta Rei, maybe this is the best there is, but it would benefit from a cleaned up reissue. With the modern AI technology, it could surely be remixed in stereo and better dynamics be extracted from the source tape. It's also a bit disappointing they re-used the cover art for the original album. One of progg's most stunning sleeves, it feels a bit lazy not bothering to come up with something more imaginative.

Full album playlist

SJÖN SUGER – Complete albums 1974-1978

I kustbandet (Polydor, 1974)

Sjön Suger (Strike Of Sweden, 1976)

Värre än vanligt (Strike Of Sweden, 1977)

Fina fisken (Marianne, 1978)

Swedish vocals, English vocals, instrumental

International relevance: -

Mentioned in the "100 other artists to listen to" in ”The Encyclopedia Of Swedish Progressive Music”. Similar in style to Grus I Dojjan but better playing. Cheerful roots music, tongue-in-cheek trad jazz and interwar period goodtime songs with ”humourous” lyrics. There's no need to distinguish the albums, they all sound the same and they're all bad.

I kustbandet no links found
Sjön Suger full album playlist
Värre än vanligt full album playlist
Fina fisken full album playlist

ÅKE SANDIN – Förlorad i toner (Subliminal Sounds, 2002; rec. 1965-70)

 Swedish vocals
International relevance: -

I don't have many rules for this blog, but one unwritten law is to include all artists mentioned in Tobias Peterson's ”The Encyclopedia Of Swedish Progressive Music”. That includes the 100 artists mentioned as ”suggested further listening”. Some inclusions in the book, especially among the extra 100, are puzzling. Sometimes I wonder what Peterson's selection criteria was.

That certainly goes for Åke Sandin. True he was a solitary original, recording his weird songs with idiosyncratic vocals and strange lyrics and releasing them himself. But the musical style was a remnant from the popular songs of the second world war and after. His songs, including those from his sole album ”Rariteter i kokäkta konvolut” with an album cover made of cloth and released in 1968, fit the Incredibly Strange Music tag. I can appreciate such myself as it's often so weird and off that you sort of have to learn to listen anew. And yes, I'm somehow fascinated by Sandin, but progg it is not. Not even with my otherwise generous definition of progg. So this post is merely to fulfill my own blog law.

Subliminal Sounds released "Förlorad i toner" in 2002 which collects everything Sandin recorded between 1965 and 1970.

Full album playlist

KALLE ALMLÖF – Kalle Almlöf (Amigo, 1980)

Instrumental
International relevance: *

Kalle Almlöf's claim to blog inclusion stems from his co-operation with Arbete & Fritid/Roland Keijser associate Anders Rosén; Almlöf's first album was ”Västerdalton” which prominently featured Rosén's fiddle, and so did 1975's ”Stamp, tramp och långkut”. The eponymous 1980 album at hand marks the third time they united on disc, and it also features some further noted fiddlers, namely Pers Hans Olsson, Jonny Soling and Björn Ståbi. 

As expected, it's Swedish folk fiddling through and through with an emphasis on polskas (a particular type of dance tunes highly popular among Swedish folk musicians). The perfoming duties are split in solos and duos, and while there's nothing wrong with any of it (the skills displayed here are impeccable, needless to say), it's a collection of tunes clearly aimed at the folk music audience and not at all recorded with any progg listeners in mind. The best tracks are the most melancholic ones, particularly the two that round off the first side, ”Bakmes” (a variation on well-known Swedish folk song ”Vårvindar friska”) with Anders Rosén, and Almlöf's solo execution in ”Polska från Älvdalen”. The high point of side B is the Kalle Almlöf original ”Åreskutan”, a tribute to a Swedish mountain by the same name.

No links found.

ELISABET HERMODSSON, LENA GRANHAGEN et al – Till Camilo Torres och revolutionen i Latinamerika. Röster i mänskligt landscape. (Proprius, 1971)

Swedish vocals, spokem word
International relevance: -

Camilo Torres was a catholic priest and a member of the Colombian geurilla movement. He urged for co-operation between marxists and Christians but was eventually executed by government troops in 1966 and was refused a Christian funeral, His burial place is still undisclosed.

This album with the very long title meaning ”to Camilo Torres and the Latin American revolution with the two sides named ”voices in a human landscape part 1 & 2” are as pretentious as the music within. It's a memorial mass composed by Alfred Jansson with spoken recitals by Elisabet Hermodsson, Lena Granhagen and Håkan Strängberg set a backdrop performed by the chamber choir of Gothenburg and a classical orchestra. The work's smugness is completely overbearing and I find it impossible to sit through the entire thing without breathing in a bag.

Full album playlist