ISTID – Istid (Urspår, 1980)

 
Swedish vocals
International relevance: **

I don't know what put the misconception in my head that this was an album on the heavier side of things as it's clearly not. Istid's only album, released on the electic Urspår label (home to Kräldjursanstalten, Lars Hollmer, Von Zamla, Rena Rama, Lokomotiv Konkret and several others), is a rather spacious sounding effort in a folk influenced singer/songwriter vein. Two of the members were in other bands: singer/guitarist Lennart Lundgren used to be in Mendoza who cut one memorable CBS album in 1972, while bassist Christer Höglund made his presence known in two other low profile bands, Musikgruppen ACP that released one rare privately pressed single-sided LP, and the blues inflected Frontalrock and their self-released 7” ”Nattens Barn”.

Istid's capacious sound pretty much comes from them substituting regular drums with hand drums including tablas on a couple of tracks. Acoustic instruments are predominant, although best track ”Havet” adds a fuzz guitar solo to good effect. The rest of the material here is quite mediocre. 

Also, I don't like the vocals that often sound like a testosteronic Lasse Tennander. The songs are what they are, but ”Istid” would be more appealing had they skipped the vocal mannerisms. The album does have some nice characteristics but they are overshadowed by less attractive features. 

Väggen 

ORIENTEXPRESSEN – Orientexpressen (Urspår, 1979)

  
Instrumental, other languages
International relevance: **

Orientexpressen may not be the most imaginative name (meaning, as easily guessed, ”the Orient express”), but it gives as rough although not perfectly accurate idea of what they sound like. Founded in 1975, they've made quite a few albums over the years with members coming and going. For this debut album they consisted of one Turkish born flute and darbouka player and five members Sweden born and bred, of which several also played with Södra Bergens Balalaikor. Add to that two guest singers. They performed traditional music from Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Serbia and the Balkans, a mix that was far from unique in those days. ”Orientexpressen” isn't as good as the less authentic but marvellous Ramlösa Kvällar but much better than the unsatisfactory and polite Radio Balkan. Performances are passionate, and the music has that certain rawness I want from recordings such as this.

The instruments are of course adequate to the music, upright bass, accordeon, fiddle, flutes from near and far, tamboura, clarinet, gajda (bagpipe)... Not to mention the thunderous drum sound of tapan and darbouka. There can never be enough of thunderous darbouka!

All in all, a convincing debut from this long standing band. 

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RENA RAMA – Live (Organic Music, 1983; rec. 1975)

 
Instrumental
International relevance: ***

Recorded with the second Rena Rama line-up with American Leroy Lowe on drums instead of Bengt Berger who left after their first album. Not released until 1983 on Urspår's sublabel Organic Music, but taped live at Stockholm's premiere jazz club Fasching one winter's evening in 1975. The other Rena Rama albums are mostly OK but not really top shelf material to my ears; it always sounds to me as if they hold something back. That's not the case here. Housed in a beautiful cover, ”Live” bursts with free jazz energy, especially Lennart Åberg who blows his saxophone harder than I think I've ever heard him blow before while Bobo Stenson attacks his piano with a fervour that from time to time makes me think of Cecil Taylor. Leroy Lowe is everywhere but bassist Palle Danielsson follows his every step. There's a sizzling energy even in the softer passages, as if they just wait for the next blowout that will come any moment. Some might think ”Live” is just a complement to the regular Rena Rama albums, but I think this is their absolutely finest moment on record. Essential!

Full album playlist

LOKOMOTIV KONKRET – Stockholm Augusti, 1978 (Urspår, 1979) / Lokomotiv Konkret (Urspår, 1980)

 Instrumental
International relevance ***/***

Lokomotiv Konkret were formed in 1976 by Israeli-born saxophonist Dror Feiler who made his mark in more areas than just music. As an conceptual artist, he stirred up controversy with his installation ”Snow White and the Madness of Truth” in 2004 which had Israeli ambassador Zvi Mazel vandalize the work, followed by a diplomatic crisis between Sweden and Israel. Feiler is one of the driving forces behind Ship to Gaza who attained immediate international recognition in 2010 during another confrontation with Israel. As a member of Vänsterpartiet (the Swedish socialist party), he's run for the Swedish parliament as

well as the EU parliament, and has demonstrated against the far-right Sweden Democrats by blowing his saxophone loudly to disturb their public meetings. A musical activist as well as a political one, Lokomotiv Konkret has declared that their music is ”free improvisations over the fair distribution of the world's resources in an ecologically sustainable society based on democracy, equality and solidarity”.

Lokomotiv Konkret began in 1976 and made their album debut in 1979 with the first-ever release on the Urspår label (later home to Kräldjursanstalten, Von Zamla and Rena Rama). The album, explanatory entitled ”Stockholm augusti, 1978”, is a violent and assault on the audience at the House of Culture, with a strong bond to Swedish free jazz pioneers G.L. Unit and the European scene spearheaded by German wildman Peter Brötzmann. It's a remarkably intense and abrasive performance, guerilla jazz, that hardly eases up even in the quieter moments; the sparser moments hold the tension and are more like a cunning plans for what's about to come again than a relaxation from what preceeded them. “Stockholm augusti, 1978” stands up strong to just about anything that the European free jazz had to offer and truly working on an international level. A must have.

Lokomotiv Konkret's second, and self-titled, album followed in 1980. Also a live document, this time with recording locations shared between Stockholm's Museum of Modern Art and premiere jazz club Fasching in 1979. Bass trombone player Pär Nordfält left and was replaced by highly respected Sten Sandell on piano, the sound of the band changed somewhat and the tracks are shorter. To make required space for the piano, the rest of the ensemble holds back a bit. The direct attack of their debut is less direct here. They harness the energy and kind of distributes it on the width rather than assaulting you straight in a concerted attack. You could say that ”Lokomotiv Konkret” is a more sophisticated effort than the debut LP. It's all down to preferences which one that suits you the best; the frothing outbursts usually get my nod – the uninhibited energy is why I gravitated towards free jazz to begin with, with the (slightly more) reflective side of the genre being more of an occasional complement, so my choice would be the debut album. I'm not saying that “Lokomotiv Konkret” is a lesser album, I'm just saying it's different. In the end, it's an essential album to go along with the relentless ”Stockholm augusti, 1978”.

Seemingly still active off and on, Lokomotiv Konkret has released only three more albums during the course of twelve years, the last one being released in 1995. Although it's outside the time frame of the blog, I'd still like to recommend their third album ”The Sky's The Limit” from 1983 which is the one of theirs closest to ”Stockholm augusti, 1978”. Also worthy of investigation if you can find it is the 1988 one-off album by Too Much Too Soon Orchestra, appropriately titled "Saw - Music For Instruments And Machines". A merciless slab of noise jazz, also notable for being one of the first appearances on disc by free jazz giant Mats Gustafsson.

Stockholm augusti, 1978 full album
Lokomotiv Konkret full album

VON ZAMLA – Zamlaranamma (Urspår, 1982)

Instrumental

International relevance: ***

Samla Mammas Manna's first 'Z incarnation' Zamla Mammaz Manna disbanded following the marvellous ”Familjesprickor” in 1980. The year after, Lars Hollmer and Eino Haapala formed the second 'Z incarnation', Von Zamla, and recorded this album in the autumn of 1981. Von Zamla continued up until 1984, and put out two albums before disbanding, this one and ”No Make Up!” (1983).

Like ”Familjesprickor”, the much more synthesizer heavy ”Zamlaranamma” sits firmly in the RIO category but lacks the powerful tension and brilliance. Most of this album sounds like Lars Hollmer's solo music but with a more serious approach. A lot of it sounds like a bit too intrusive background music to a TV series you're not sure if you like.The album's OK but a far cry from "Familjesprickor".

An album of previously unreleased 1983 Von Zamla live recordings, simply called "1983", was eventually released in 1999 on Cuneiform.

Full album

KRÄLDJURSANSTALTEN – Voodoo Boogie (Urspår, 1981)

Swedish vocals

International relevance: ***

The very idea of a 'progg purist' is contradictive as progg is so very multifaceted to its very nature, but I suppose some wouldn't count Kräldjursanstalten as progg enough, perhaps suggesting they were basically a punk band with odd time signatures. This ambiguity only makes Kräldjursanstalten even more interesting, suggesting a nebulous border area genre of sorts along with bands like Unos Kanoner, Fiendens Musik, and the Älgarnas Trädgård/Anna Själv Tredje related Cosmic Overdose.

UK magazine The Wire probably came closest to the truth when they claimed that Kräldjursanstalten is the band best conjuring up the spirit of Captain Beefheart. Or, in the words of Beefheart biographer Mike Barnes: "Few have been able to harness the forces he unleashed and decontextualize them into a new, individual take on his legacy – into a new art-form. Sweden's astonishing Kräldjursanstalten [...] were an exception." Kräldjursanstalten's notion of rhythm was similar to Beefheart's, like tossing the music into the air, capturing it on record just before the pieces hit the ground and fell into their 'proper' place. But make no mistake: They were one tight outfit and they knew exactly what they were doing. (Other contemporary bands tried but failed, like Mögel and Boojwah Kids.)

Early 80's radio show Ny Våg (”new wave”) dedicated to punk and whatever music grew out of it occasionally warped the airwaves with Kräldjursanstalten. Most listeners couldn't stand them, except one who wrote a letter to the show praising the band, saying ”they're so tight the drummer can't keep up with them” (quoted from memory). A perfectly impossible and impossibly perfect description of the band's sound.

The drummer in question was Michael Maksymenko who later – appropriately enough – teamed up with John French and Henry Kaiser in shortlived outfit Crazy Backwards Alphabet. Maksymenko was also involved in different radio and television productions, including the provocative mid 80's radio show Studio Korrekt. Completing the Kräldjursanstalten line-up were Agaton twin brothers Stefan (bass) and Thomas (guitar).

Their 1980 five track 12” debut ”Nu är det allvar!!!” (subtitled ”Som ett fyllo i ett minfält”, ”like a drunk in a mine field”) is good, but fulfills their potential only partly, as in standout tracks ”Det löser sig atematiskt” and ”Fet och feg”. An unreleased Tonkraft show, recorded in July 1980 six months after ”Nu är det allvar!!!” confirms that Kräldjursanstalten got better fast. A further six months on, their spastic, deconstructed/reconstructed music came into full bloom with ”Voodoo Boogie”. ”Breda räfflade gummidäck”, ”Minst värst” and the title track squirt and jerk and skimp and thump, chasing Captain Beefheart through the outskirts of rhythm, occasionally even catching up with him in terms of energy and complexity. It's easily one of the best Swedish albums of its era, and one of the most intriguing. There's no other album quite like it, i.e. unless you count ”Trout Mask Replica” and ”Lick My Decals Off, Baby”.

Kräldjursanstalten even had the coolest band name ever – ”The Reptile Asylum”. It sounds better in Swedish but still, you just can't beat that.

Voodoo Boogie full album playlist

Nu är det allvar!!! full album