ÄLGARNAS TRÄDGÅRD – Framtiden är ett svävande skepp, förankrat i forntiden (Silence, 1972)

Instrumental, Swedish vocals

International relevance: ***

Ranked #19 on the blog's Top 25

Perhaps Gothenburg's Älgarnas Trädgård should have been German because they were more 'kosmische' than most. Träd, Gräs & Stenar's music have been declared 'meditative', but that's an adjective I'd rather save for Älgarnas Trädgård. Because their kind of meditation works without serial flubs and fuck-ups. They even manage to use sitar and tablas on ”Det finns en tid för allt, det finns en tid då även tiden möts” without getting silly and cheap-sounding.

”Framtiden är ett svävande skepp, förankrat i forntiden” sounds just like band member and painter Jan Ternald's absolutely stunning artwork looks. The album is a trip deep into inner space, an intergalactic mind journey but at the same time firmly rooted in ancient soil through the folk sounding passages as ”Möjligheternas barn” with vocals by Margareta Söderberg, and ”Tristans klagan” based on the renaissance dance ”La Rotta” (title corrected on later editions). The music's an altered state full of secrets, conundrums and enigmas, reaching out in all directions, inwards, outwards, upwards, downwards, sideways, ahead and back – its scope is almost unfathomable. ”Framtiden är ett svävande skepp” is a work of wonder.

When reissued on CD, the album was expanded with live recordings made at Gothenburg's Museum of Art in 1972. More live recordings exist, including one from Stora Teatern in Gothenburg in 1973. A second Älgarnas Trädgård album was also recorded, but as the band dissolved during the mixing sessions, the release was cancelled. Silence eventually put out it out as ”Delayed” in 2001.

Full album playlist with bonus tracks

COSMIC OVERDOSE – Dada Koko (Silence, 1980) / 4668 (Silence, 1981)

 
Swedish vocals
IRG **

Where to draw the line? What is progg and what is not? I prefer to use the 'benefit of doubt' principle here on the blog, and gladly let through albums that some people sometimes deem controversially un-progg. But an ambition of mine as your humble blog owner is to widen the idea of progg, to trace influences and entwine threads in order to see patterns and relations even in unexpected places as long as they appear within the time frame of the Swedish Progg Blog. This is not as much an apology as it's a declaration of objectives. That said, I was long undecided if Cosmic Overdose belong here but was convinced by some blog followers to let them in. Those people reminded me of the benefit-of-doubt principle.

After all, Cosmic Overdose sure had some progg credentials working for them. Two of the members used to be in Älgarnas Trädgård and Anna Själv Tredje, Dan Söderqvist and Ingemar Ljungström respectively with Ljungström performing as Karl Gasleben, sometimes Terminalkapten Gasleben.(Söderqvist was also in Ragnarök.) Originally inspired by David Bowie's ”Heroes” and Wire's game-changing debut ”Pink Flag” in 1977, they came together as Cosmic Overdose the following year. Their name was chosen ironically but had an equal krautrock and synth punk ring to it. That's telling enough.

Upon seeing Sheffield's haunting industrial band Cabaret Voltaire and maverick Fad Gadget live in London in 1979, the Cosmics expanded their line-up to a trio, adding Kjell ”Regnmakaren” Karlgren on drums. Already affiliated with Silence Records (home of both Älgarnas Trädgård and Anna Själv Tredje), the label released their debut single ”Observation galen” in 1979. Backed with ”Isolatorer”, it wasn't an entirely convincing start. The 'A' side especially is a revved up number, more akin to fellow Gothenburgians and post punk outfit Kai Martin & Stick! – it even took use of a saxophone on the verge of a nervous breakdown similar to what Gomer Explensch did in Kai Martin's band – than the future style of Cosmic Overdose. Peter Bryngelsson from Ragnarök also joined in with his easily detected guitar playing.

It wasn't until their first full-length 1980 album ”Dada Koko” that Cosmic Overdose found the style in which they truly excelled. Tempos were slower, synths and drum machines dominated the sound that could easily be dubbed coldwave with a more modern, after-the-fact term. Added to the chilly electronics was the sometimes space rock-floating sometimes chunky and punkish guitar; the mix of contemporary synthetic sounds and the humanly fleshy guitar created an unnerving ambiguity. Never as uninhibited as say Métal Urbain or serial killer neurotic as Suicide, Cosmic Overdose carved out a niche of their own in the all too small synth punk genre, constantly permeated by their kosmische progg past in Älgarnas Trädgård and Anna Själv Tredje.

”Dada Koko” is a fullblown masterpiece. You'd be hard pressed to find a bad track among the eleven that constitute the album. If there is one, it would be closing track ”Råttan”, but preceeded by tracks such as the uneasy ”Investera”, the jittery ”Moderna dadaister”, the menacing (and slightly Tubeway Army-inflected) ”Vit yta” and the threatening ”Turs”, they had already won.

Following a great seven-inch released later the same year, the English language ”To Night”/”Dead”, the album follow-up to ”Dada Koko” was released in 1981, with Regnmakaren substituted by Jimmy Cyklon (real name Thomas Andersson). ”4668” is a tighter sounding album, but it has some tracks that come off as a bit underdeveloped and not as distinct as the selections on ”Dada Koko”, It still has a lot going for it though. ”En av dom” has a few vocal parts that remind me of French Wagnerians Magma (!). The icy ”Oktoberfragment” ought to get your skin crawling. But the real blast here is album opener ”Bomber”, a stone-cold Cosmic Overdose classic that would have stood up well for itself even on the just about impeccable ”Dada Koko”.

Cosmic Overdose attracted international interest and amazingly enough, even the States were keen on them. (Remember, they were no ABBA or Blue Swede, and for a band as small as Cosmic Overdose to make waves there was no mean feat.) An American 'best of' with the lyrics translated to English and the chosen tracks remixed was planned but ultimately shelved. Instead, a cassette-only album named ”Final KoKo” was released on Gothenburg label Xenophone International, consisting of the recordings intended for the stateside market. The U.K. too wanted to lay their hands on the band, but the Brits insisted on a name change. A personnel change later, they settled for Twice A Man as their new name. As such, they embarked on a second career that lasts to this very day, including numerous releases in various formats. But with the name change, the original dark magic of Cosmic Overdose was lost.

In 2016, the Cosmics were given the box set treatment when Progress Productions released ”Total Koko”, a 3CD set including both their original albums in full plus a bonus CD featuring the 45 exclusives as well as several previously unreleased recordings.

So, is it progg or not progg? It really doesn't matter, because regardless of what label you want to slap on the music, Cosmic Overdose's small ouvre stands out as something very, very special. The only word you really need for it is 'essential'.

"Dada Koko" full album playlist
"4668" full album playlist
"Final Koko" full album playlist
"Observation galen" single playlist
"To Night" single playlist

ANNA SJÄLV TREDJE – Tussilago Fanfara (Silence, 1977)

Instrumental 

International relevance: ***

Ranked #24 on the blog's Top 25 list

Sometimes very much in the vein of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Temple, Anna Själv Tredje would have fit nicely in with kraut rock's more cosmische acts, but to write them off simply as epigones is unfair. There's something decidedly Swedish to them, a strong sense of a mystical fir forest blended in with the outer space soundscapes. Or if you like, they are constantly travelling the border between a wonderful dream and a haunting nightmare.

Their three dimensional sound is highly evocative, and halfway through ”Inte utanför tiden” a distant fuzz guitar kicks in, hinting at emotions provoked by the majestic Älgarnas Trädgård. ”Tussilago Fanfara” is a 40 minute floating journey through the inner and outer space.

Anna Själv Tredje, who took their name from Leonardo da Vinci's painting ”The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne”, managed to release this one album only, but they did several sessions for Swedish radio show Tonkraft. One track from such a session was included in the compilation series ”Tonkraft”, on the ”1977-78” volume to be precise. ”Snöfall och daggyra” is only available on this various artists compilation, and their full Tonkraft recordings serve as an additional album since they consisted of entirely exclusive material. It's well worth tracking down those rare recordings if you like ”Tussilago Fanfara”.

Leonardo da Vinci's painting, c. 1510. 

Band members Mikael Bojén och Ingemar Ljungström founded Anna Själv Tredje already in 1971. It's unclear though when they eventually split up. This is how parts of the story goes: When Ljungström met Dan Söderquist from the aforementioned Älgarnas Trädgård, they formed Cosmic Overdose in 1978, together with Ragnarök's Kjell Karlgren. Cosmic Overdose released two albums (plus a few singles and a cassette-only album) of excellent electronic post punk. Ljungström took the stage name Karl Gasleben (sometimes Terminalkapten Gasleben) and Karlgren performed as Regnmakarn. In 1981 Cosmic Overdose became Twice A Man after Karlgren/Regnmakarn left the group. It seems possible though that Anna Själv Tredje and Cosmic Overdose had overlapping careers for a while, as one Per-Axel Stenström claims he played with Anna Själv Tredje for a while the early 80's, i.e. after Cosmic Overdose already was in full swing. So it's possible that Anna Själv Tredje gradually folded as Cosmic Overdose were catching speed.

At one time in the early 90's, Bojén played morning and evening shows in Slottskogen (the Central Park of Gothenburg, the stomping ground of both Anna Själv Tredje and Cosmic Overdose). According to one attendant, the performances sounded a lot like Klaus Schulze.

The stunning cover art to ”Tussilago Fanfara” was designed by the prolific Tom Benson, a noted photographer whose exceptional and suggestive photographic montages has been exhibited several times in art galleries in Sweden. Benson also took the picture of Nynningen for their ”För full hals” album, and he was a close friend of Freddie Wadling, one of Sweden's most remarkable vocalists ever. Benson unfortunately died in 2008. The cover of ”Tussilago Fanfara” fits Anna Själv Tredje's music perfectly.

Tussilago Fanfara full album
Tonkraft 1978

ÄLGARNAS TRÄDGÅRD – Delayed (Silence, recorded 1973-1974, released 2001)

Instrumental, Swedish vocals

International relevance: ***

The history's full of albums that have become legendary in their absence. The fewer that have heard an unreleased album, the better it gets in the imagination of those who haven't. Only rarely, albums like that can live up to the expectations.

Recorded in 1973 and 1974, the recordings subsequently released as ”Delayed” was meant for a follow up to Älgarnas Trädgård's highly regarded debut ”Framtiden är ett svävande skepp förankrat i forntiden” from 1972. During the mixing sessions for the album, cracks began to show within the band which led to them disbanding before the work was done, leaving the recordings unfinished until 2001 when Silence finally released it on CD with its appropriate album title.

If ”Framtiden är ett svävande skepp” was spacey, ”Delayed” is much less abstract with only ”My Childhood Trees” reminiscent of the debut. ”Delayed” is heavier in a more typical contemporary prog rock fashion. Unfortunately, when members Dan Söderqvist and Jan Ternald mixed it for the posthumous release, they added tons of reverb which make the album sound more anachronistic than I believe it would have if released as originally projected. I don't think the music is particularly good to begin with, but it would have been better if given a drier mix. Now it's still something of a lost album.

Full album playlist

GÖTATEATERN & ÖBÖBÖ – Flyttfåglarna (Götateatern, 1980)

Swedish vocals, instrumental, spoken word

International relevance: **

A rarely mentioned curio. a double album from a stage play made for children in 1980 by Götateatern in Gothenburg. While the narration is a bit distracting and even more so to a non-Swedish listener, there's more music than spoken word on the album, and the musical parts are in fact rather interesting. Especially when you realize that the bizarrely named Öböbö musical ensemble comprised Sebastian Öberg and Andreas Brandt from Älgarnas Trädgård; Christer Öhman who provided percussion to ”Tristans klagan” on the Älgarna Trädgård album; Gunnar Bergsten of Fläsket Brinner and Sevda (plus a plentiful of jazz groups), and Bill Öhström who had played with Tillsammans, Ramlösa Kvällar, Mikael Ramel, Bo Hansson... You get the point.

Some of the all-acoustic tracks have vocal appearances from Ragni Carlsson, with lyrics by Ingegerd Leyman (today known as Ingegerd Rönnbäck) who also wrote the play. Not all tracks are good, but the folksier tracks are rather pleasant and evocative, especially the Eastern inspired ”Zinkonsången” complete with Öhrström's darbouka, Bergsten's flute and Brandt's fiddle, and ”Spindeln Spinn” with its quirky time signature and rich use of marimba, which also happen to be the two longest tracks on the album.

No links found

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

SAMBANDET – Gud är! (no label, 1976)

Instrumental, Swedish vocals, English vocals

International relevance: **

This is one of the most striking obscurities from the Swedish Jesus underground. Still largely undiscovered, two tracks were included on Subliminal Sound's excellent ”Frälst!” comp, so I suspect it's only a matter of time until prices skyrockets. (One guy on Discogs already tries to cram a laughable €300 out of it – yeah, right, good luck with that.) Until then, it's still possible for a lucky guy to pick it up for peanuts in local charity shops around Sweden.

Apart from being recognized by Subliminal Sounds, the appearance of Björn Famne immediately piqued my curiousity. Famne 's finest moment is ”Vampire”, an outrageous full frontal fuzz attack originally featured on his eponymous 1975 Rasp Records EP and later revived on ”Who Will Buy These Wonderful Evils Vol. 3”. Those who because of that and Sambandet's two ”Frälst!” tracks expect a hard psych freak-out from their sole LP ”Gud är” (”God is”) from 1976 are sure to be disappointed though. As a whole, this is a different beast – but an intriguing one.

Those in the know consider ”Gud är” as one of the finest Xian albums ever to come out of Sweden, and it doesn't take much to get its appeal. It's much harder to pinpoint its style though, as it constantly changes. ”I Am Free” is a strangely prog-induced track with quacking wah-wah guitar, while ”Go(o)d News” is a bizarre kind of tripped-out studio exotica, with no similarity whatsoever to anything else on the album. (No wonder these two tracks ended up on ”Frälst!”) Unusual to a religious album, a large part of ”Gud är” is all instrumental. Some tracks remind me of a less trippy and more flute-folky Älgarnas Trädgård (but I might be just about the only person in the whole wide world to sense that), while ”Don't Be A Loser” could have been a Gabor Szabo outtake with its clean-sounding easy listening styled guitar work and feather-light beat. ”Happy” makes me think of a Gentle Giant getting drunker by the minute on Swedish schnapps while trying to play a sunlit jazz waltz. ”Vi tycker om att sjunga” translates to ”we like to sing” but is in fact another short instrumental which sounds as if it could have been the theme music from a 70s children show no-one ever saw. ”I Wanna Be More” in turn is Sambandet's stab at gospel but of course warped through a prism of female vocals private pressing UK folk. And so on.

”Gud är” is one of those albums so kaleidoscopic in style it's hard to understand what exactly the band was aiming for. Definitely inconsistent, but the inconsistency is also what gives it its weird charm and works to its advantage. Recorded in the semi-mysterious/semi-legendary Falks Studio in small city Eksjö, it has a ”professional low-budget” sound that goes well along with the decidedly mixed skills of the performers. (Falks Studio might even be the label, but who knows.) Björn Famne is a driven guitarslinger (and shows off his acoustic guitar chops on the renaissance sounding instrumental ”Bortom”), while drummer Kjell Ljunggren doesn't bother a sometimes sloppy beat.

The wild mood and style changes makes for a truly original listening experience, and once you've put it on, it's hard to turn it off as you never quite grow accustomed to its bizarre versatility. Hear it ten times, and you're still not prepared for what comes around the corner. Like I just said, I've no idea what Sambandet were trying to achieve anything but whatever lept to their minds at any given moment, but in the end, the possible lack of a proper plan almost appears visionary. It's a one-of-a-kind album no matter how you look at it, and if you decide to strictly view it as a Xian album designed to woe the Lord, it only gets even stranger and even more confusing.

Is it a masterpiece? Not necessarily, but it's sure an album you don't hear everyday but one you definitely want to hear more than once in your lifetime. If only to find it out.

Full album playlist

BLÖDARNA – Diggar ditt hål (Heartwork, 7” 1979)

 
English vocals, Swedish vocals
International relevance: ***

I thought long and hard about how and where to fit this one in. There's no album to link it to as a postscript, and lumping it in with other singles seemed awkward too as it's such a solitary beast. So finally I decided it deserves a post of its own. But first, a little history lesson.

Stry Terrarie (née Anders Sjöholm) roared his way into music with punk band Kriminella Gitarrer (=”criminal guitars”) in 1978. Often heralded as the first Swedish punk band, they made an immediate impression with their debut single ”Vårdad klädsel”, which to this day remain perhaps the most violent and abrasive assault on your eardrums ever recorded in Sweden – it's so explosive that it has earned international recognition through its inclusion on one of the volumes of the ”Bloodstains” punk compilation series. Several acclaimed singles followed (although none had quite the same ballistic impact as ”Vårdad klädsel”), but it was a track off 1979 various artists compilation ”Svensk pop” that draw ”normal people's” attention to them. When ”Knugen skuk” was played on radio show ”Ny våg” it was immediately banned, contemplating as it did the nature of the reproductive organ belonging to the King of Sweden.

Following the disbanding of Kriminella Gitarrer in 1979, the musically restless Stry Terrarie initiated several different bands, all of them excellent: Besökarna (”the visitors”), Stry & Stripparna (”Stry & the strippers”), Garbochock and – Blödarna (”the bleeders”). It's often hard to discern where one band ended and the next one began; it's not unfair to say their line-ups are in a continuous fluxus state. What can be determined though, is that Terrarie gravitated towards a much darker sound in many of those bands, far removed from the foundations-rattling ferocity of Kriminella Gitarrer. You can for instance sense an air of The Doors in Garbochock, but his psychedelic leanings never manifested themselves as succesfully and profoundly as in Blödarna (which really was the seed for Garbochock)..

With only one single released plus a lo-fi contribution to the exquisitely rare V/A cassette-only release "Eldbegängelse", Blödarna are an almost mythological parenthesis. At least until you hear ”Diggar ditt hål” (="digging your hole"). Recorded live on stage, the twelve minute track moves slowly like menacing shadows in the dark. The lyrics switch between Swedish and English, but the vocals are barely audible anyway, and often come through like paranoid yelps among the persistent, droning organ and the piercing guitars zig-zagging their way between Television's brothers-in-arms Tom Verlaine & Richard Lloyd and a malicious Robbie Krieger. The creeping mood won't change until two minutes before the end when the song slowly speeds up to an almost ”Psychotic Reaction”-like frenzy with Terrarie definitely going over the edge vocally.

It still sounds sick, twisted and bizarre: a true gem, a classic, a masterpiece, a milestone. Is it progg? Is it psych? I don't know, but it grew out of the very same soil as once Älgarnas Trädgård, Träd Gräs & Stenar, and Arbete & Fritid's ”Petrokemi”, it only flourished differently.

Full single playlist (Bandcamp)