VARIOUS ARTISTS – Festplatsen 1974 (Happy Cop & Hiphop Bee, 2024; rec. 1974)

 Featured artists: Monica Törnell / Risken Finns / Nynningen / Mikael Ramel / Peps Blodsband / Cornelis Vreeswijk
Swedish vocals
International relevance: ***

”Festplatsen 1974” follows obscure label Happy Cop & Hiphop Bee's overwhelmingly brilliant ”Hälsa på som förr” by Mikael Ramel & Unga Hjärtan, and what it is is best explained by the liner notes: ”Festplatsen (='the festival grounds') was an entertainment show made for both radio and TV and recorded live at small festival grounds in July and August 1973, The music and the talk should, as much as possible, reflect the locality by mixing local talents and invited national and sometimes international personalities.” The show was aired in five episodes and was hosted by Mikael Ramel and Bengan Dalén of Fläsket Brinner and at the time also member of Ramel's band. Satirical duo Risken Finns were musical regulars on the show.

This album has selections from three of the five episodes, and apart from the obvious inclusions of Risken Finns and Ramel himself, there are appearences from Monica Törnell, Peps Blodsband, and Sweden's prime troubadour Cornelis Vreeswijk. There's also an unusual example of Nynningen backing Risken Finns in a wonderfully raucous version of Risken's chestnut ”Du känner väl mig”. If Nynningen's own albums would have been that unhinged they'd have been way better! Risken's two other contributions are good too although more in their usual acoustic vein.

Mikael Ramel's songs with Dalén are more low-key than those on ”Hälsa på som förr” but still absolutely great. These four tracks are an essential addition to his regular albums and the splendid live album mentioned earlier.

I'm a bit disappointed with Peps Persson and his Blodsband though. This was around the time when Peps switched from blues to reggae, and here they occasionally sound as if they're not sure which to choose. Both ”Falsk matematik” and ”Djupt i mitt hjärta” sound confused, especially with the addition of accordeon which seems to have a hard time finding its place in the mix. The Swedish cover of ”Little Red Rooster” – ”Liden rö tocke” – fares better by being a straight-ahead blues, but all four Peps tracks seem a bit off.

The sound quality is excellent mono all through and the album was released in a minimal edition of only 100 copies on vinyl, no CD.

The full fifth episode of ”Festplatsen” is available for streaming on Mikael Ramel's website and has a couple of Kebnekaise tracks not on this album. 

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CORNELIS VREESWIJK – Poem, ballader och lite blues (Metronome, 1970)

 Swedish vocals, spoken word
International relevance: **

Cornelis Vreeswijk came to Sweden from The Netherlands as a 12 year old, well in time to learn Swedish to the point he mastered the Swedish language better than many native Swedes. His debut album ”Ballader och oförskämdheter” hit like a bomb upon its release in 1964 and more or less kickstarted the wave of new Swedish troubadours and visa singers. No-one could touch his excellence though, and up to his untimely death in 1987, he had released dozens of albums of sharp-witted observations, great acoustic guitar playing and brilliant songwriting. Not a lot of it is within the progg realm however, but he did have some friends in high progg places as proven by his albums around the turn of the decade 1969/71. Looking closely at the musician credits from these years, you'll find names like Kenny Håkansson, Lasse Wellander and Slim Borgudd. Borgudd is also on ”Poem, ballader och lite blues” along with Jojje Wadenius and Bosse Häggström meaning the entire Made In Sweden is present here. Add to that Björn J:son Lindh and Sten Bergman, and you have an album with progg credentials enough.

The title is self-explanatory. It translates to ”poems, ballads and a bit of blues”, and that's exactly what you get. The poetry recitals may be short but they're nevertheless distracting and interrupts the flow but the strictly musical parts are, for the most part, simply brilliant. You could argue that it would have been an even better album if the double album had been trimmed down to a single disc omitting a few out-of-place numbers, but that's essentially hairsplitting. Not only does it feature some of Vreeswijk's best songs of all time, the musicianship is absolutely great on tracks like ”Rosenblad, rosenblad”, ”Cool Water – på den Gyldene Freden” and the really heavy blues ”Ett gammalt bergtroll”. Eveyrhing adds up to Cornelis's best album and thus, one of the great Swedish albums.

Full album playlist