EGBA – Omen (MNW, 1981)

Instrumental
International relevance: **

EGBA's albums got gradually less interesting as their popularity grew. True they got more proficient, but it's the first album aura of their 1974 debut that appeals to me the most. By 1981 they were an enormously tight jazz fusion outfit clearly impressed with the likes of The Crusaders and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters with undertows of Latin and African rhythms as known from EGBA's earlier albums. ”Omen” also shares a few traits with the reborn Miles Davis's ”The Man With The Horn” released the very same year. Although I'm nowhere near a fan of fusion jazz, there are still the occasional 70's album that displays wit, joy of discovery and search for a new, vital expression, but by the early 80's, it had become a style for middle managers in television rimmed glasses and brown polyester suits. Very much like "Omen".

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FLÄSKET BRINNER FEATURING BO HANSSON – LIVE AT PISTOLTEATERN 1972 (Mellotronen, 2023)

Instrumental
International relevance: ***

This is exactly the kind of stuff I want to see excavated from the dust-covered shelves of history's archives, by a band that needs more releases out! True there's the great box set of Swedish Radio tapes released in the early 00's, there simply can't be too much prime Fläsket Brinner in this world. At the same time, it's a Bo Hansson release, as this show taped at the legendary Pistolteatern in Stockholm in 1972 documents his short stint with the band.

It's a rare recording, and the copy that has circulated among collectors was really bad sounding, so the discovery of the first generation tape is a Holy Grail find. It remains an audicence recording with plenty of room ambience, but the sound has been cleaned up and the nuances brought out as much possible.

But the most important thing is of course the music. The performance is explosive. Fläsket Brinner provides the perfect backdrop to a particularly inspired Bo Hansson who travels the organways with equal parts of precision and curiousity. He sounds as if he discovers new melodies all the time, explore them, moves on, returns to them again, constantly pushed on by a band firing on all cylinders. I must especially point out Erik Dahlbäck here. Captain Dahlbäck is just about a flawless drummer in any given situation, but here he really shines like a supernova. His playing is incredibly intense, precise down to a molecular level, following every minimal shift in the music, creating new possibilities. What a powerhouse he is!

So I have no objections to the music pressed on this disc (500 copies in black vinyl, 500 in 'water blue' which more looks like glow-in-the-dark green if you ask me), but I do have a few towards the presentation. There's one ugly midtrack edit that breaks the flow brutally. Other tracks fade out early, others again fade in. It's like going to the loo amidst a concert and hear the music grow in volume as you return closer to the stage. It's actually pretty annoying. It's been decades since I heard the inferior tape dub of this show, so I can't remember whether the music was chopped up, and I can't vouch for what the source tape used for this release is like, but there was definitely more music recorded at Pistolteatern than what's on this disc. Why not make it a double album with the entire show, or at least how much of it was recorded? And why only make it a prefab raririty in limited edition vinyl? Skip the coloured vinyl kollektor skum nonsense and focus on a proper unlimited release instead. And if the songs are cut on the original tape, please let us know in the liners so we don't have to wonder where the rest of the show has gone.

One more Pistolteatern track can be found on the FINALLY reissued first Fläsket Brinner album. True to Silence Records' lazy treatment of their own massive back catalogue, there hasn't been a proper reissue of that monolithic album until now, 2024. Apart from being nicely remastered, the original album has almost doubled its length with three long tracks added as bonuses. ”Gulan” is from Pistolteatern and is to be honest a messier recording than anything on the Melltronen disc. ”Mr. Beautiful” has better in terms of focus and sound quality, but is only a so-so latin-inflected track. The real tour de force among the new stuff is ”Collage från Konserthuset” which is a complete ten minute monster, ending with variations on a theme by Bo Hansson. Those ten minutes would blow The Mothers Of Invention off the stage any given night from the same period. I promise that you've rarely heard Fläsket that dangerous, not even on the Pistolteatern album!

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KAJ R. HANSSON – Till dom som bryr sig om (Metronome, 1980)

Swedish vocals
International relevance: *

There are quite a few illustrious characters featured on these pages, but few are as illustrious as Kaj Robert Hansson, known as Räven ('the fox') due to his hair colour. Often homeless sleeping in the parks of his native city Lund i Skåne, and a criminal since early age. He was a friend of Clark Olofsson, the infamous criminal 'superstar' of the Norrmalmstorg bank robbery which coined the phrase the Stockholm syndrome. Hansson was initially a suspect too, but soon freed from suspicions when he phoned the police and said something along the lines, ”I readin the papers that I've supposedly robbed a bank but that seems unlikely since I'm in Hawaii right now”. 

Besides his criminal career he had artistic ambitions, ambitions that were crowned by an LP release in 1980. It's impossible to imagine a well known crook getting a record deal – let alone with a major label like Metronome! – in those days when deplatforming for the flimsiest of reasons is the order the day. Those were other times, indeed. For better or for worse. The prison care was heavily debated and questioned in Sweden during the 70's, resulting in such albums as ”Kåklåtar” and Konvaljen's solo album. There was a strong opinion against the treatment of prisoners, which might explain why an album such as this wasn't considered as controversial as it would be today.

Metronome put a lot of effort into making Kaj R. Hansson's only album as good as possible. ”Till dom som bryr sig om” (' to those who cares') has a thorough list of studio musicians. Mats Ronander and Finn Sjöberg appear on guitars, and an entire lot of three drummers offer their services, Ola Brunkert, Rolf Alex and Per Lindholm, all respected studio workers. Hector Bingert in turn was a seasoned jazz saxophonist. And so on.

All songs were written by Hansson, all autobiographical in nature, delivered with his soft Southern nasal drawl. He's a pretty OK lyric writer, not nauseously self-pitying over his fate but rather matter-of-fact about his life gone wrong. The songs are pretty straightforward singer/songwriter rock, not hugely imaginative but sometimes quite catchy such as semi-Stonesy kick-off track ”Ta ett tag”. It's not a masterpiece by any stretch, but habile enough rock music from the dark side of society.

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TINTOMARA – Tintomara (Abra Cadabra Production, 1979) / Lek (Amigo, 1981)

Instrumental
International relevance: **/**

Before pianist Elise Einarsdotter became a respected name in jazz of her own, she was in late 70's/early 80's jazz quartet Tintomara along with for instance flautist Katarina Fritzén known for her work with visa singer Fred Åkerström and also appearing on a later album by Lena Ekman. Her flute is one of the most prominent features in Tintomara where she almost took on the role of a singer.

Tintomara's first, eponymous album (released on Danish imprint Abra Cadabra Production) is an incredibly tight performance with some latin touches and excellent ensemble playing. The sound is lush and airy making for an easy listen, but at the same time it's a bit unengaging. Everything is nice and there's nothing particularly wrong with it, but somehow it never concerns me much. It passes rather unnoticed despite several welcoming traits. Still better than their second album ”Lek” though.

Released on the higher profile label Amigo, ”Lek” is a much more produced affair with an overuse of smooth-over reverb. It's also an unwanted step closer to jazz fusion which is a rather ill-fitting garb for Tintomara who thereby sacrifice too much of the friendly spirit of their first effort.

Tintomara full album
Lek full album

LARS ”LACH'N” JONSSON & MATS JONSSON – Asken Yggdrasil (Bauta, 2012; rec. 1974-76)

Instrumental
International relevance: ***

A really lovely album recorded in the mid-70's but not mixed and finished until 2020. Not only is it a wonderful and unexpected blast from the past, it's also a missing piece of the Zut Un Feu Rouge and Ur Kaos puzzle. Both bands featured/features prime mover Lars ”Lach'n” Jonsson, a multi-instrumentalist but most of all drummer who also released a series of art rock solo albums in the Rē Records ilk.

Those familiar with the postpunkish RIO stylings of Zut Un Feu Rouge or the Zeuhlish assault of Ur Kaos will probably be surprised by the relative pastorality of ”Asken Yggdrasil”. I can't put it any better than what Lach'n Jonsson does himself: ”The music was created under the influence of records such as Bo Hansson – 'Lord Of The Rings'; instrumental, melodic music with a touch of old folk traditions and a Nordic atmosphere. Old Norse mythology became the theme for a musical suite, where the predictions of the Voluspa gave the motifs to form an instrumental tale.” That's exactly it!

Some tracks, all of them instrumental, are even downright romantic, such as the short piano piece ”Soluppgång” (”Sunrise”) and ”Urd, Skuld och Verdandi” (”Urd, Skuld and Verdandi”, the names of the norns that control the fate of humans in the Norse mythology). The Bo Hansson influence comes sweetly to the fore in ”Midgårdsormen” (”the snake of Midgard”) and ”Valhall” (”Valhalla”). A track like ”Ragnarök” (the twilight of the gods) in turn points toward Lach'n Jonsson's future in the abovementioned bands, with quirky rhythms and almost symphonic epicity.

Why it took until the early 10's to see this album mixed, edited and mastered is beyond me. Had it been released shortly after it was recorded, this would be heralded as a fullblown classic of the era. Well, it still is – it's just that very few people know it. Instead of wasting immodest sums of money on so called 'collectable albums” of inferior symph rock, you could get ”Asken Yggdrasil” for basically small change, and get a wonderful little album too.

Full album playlist (Bandcamp)

NEXUS – Nexus (Four Leaf Clover, 1978)

Instrumental
International relevance: **

Excessively boring fusion leaning jazz album from this Malmö quartet. Most interesting fact is that drummer Anders Lagerlöf used to be in rowdy garage gods Namelosers in the 60's. Nexus released a couple of more albums in the 80's including one together with Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava, and made another one 2020. "Nexus" was reissued in Japan in 1978 with a new (and better) sleeve.

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STÖRNINGEN – I görningen (Subverskivbolaget, 1976)

Swedish vocals
International relevance: **

”I görningen” has a couple of pretty good tracks like ”Främlingen på Stockholms C”, perhaps ”Det är jag som får tacka” and the towering closer ”Fruset land”, but it also has a Blå Tåget-styled pastiche and a few other clunkers dragging the album down. Still, it's better than some other Uppsala bands on Subverskivbolaget and Piglet, like Teddybjörn Band and the largely terrible Sub-gruppen (both bands share members with Störningen). Worth noting is the appearance of Lars Hollmer on accordeon and vocals. ”I görningen” has its share of fans, but it's far too uneven for me to recommend it.

Full album