ÄNGLASPEL – Jazz i Sverige '82 (Caprice, 1982)

Instrumental
International relevance: *

Included for relations rather than content. We have Erik Dahlbäck (Fläsket Brinner), Anders Jormin (Dan Berglund, Mwendo Dawa), Stefan Forssén (Narren, Dan Berglund, Maria Hörnelius), Stefan Isaksson (Ibis, Hawkey Franzén) and Ann-Sofie Söderqvist (Thomas Almqvist, Hawkey Franzén). Not as progg-y as one could expect, but more an album of technical post bop. This was their first album but leader Stefan Forssén used the Änglaspel name on several more scattered over the decades.

Full album playlist 

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

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

ÄNGLABARN – Änglabarn (Plump Productions, 1973)

Swedish vocals, spoken word

International relevance: **

 

Surprisingly sought after (i.e. expensive) album by Malmö duo Änglabarn consisting of Sven Ingmar Ohlsson and Dan Tillberg. Tillberg later founded the Bellatrix label, recorded two cover albums of The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan translations, and appeared in the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest in 1985 and 1986.

At first I thought this album was rather good, but the more I've heard it, the more irritating it's become. The pompous vocals have an incredibly annoying Xian vibe even if the album isn't religious. But the lyrics are bad enough, hippy clichés dressed up as haughty 'poetry', some of them written by Tillberg's grandmother. The spoken ”Dikt och vers” certainly doesn't help either, and the large choir and the string section used on several tracks give the album a crypto-symphonic character, as if it wanted to be a symph album but doesn't have the guts to see it through. Last track ”Ur drömmen” explains everything: It's a cover of The Moody Blues' ”Nights in White Satin”, but most of the album sounds just like that, a Moody Blues warmed over in a microwave oven for the fourth time.

Änglabarn also released a single in 1973, with two less overblown non-album tracks and while one thinks the toned down arrangements would help the duo's cause, they're even worse than anything on the album, with the dreadful hippy dippy schmippy drivel even more to the fore.

Full album playlist with bonus tracks (Bandcamp)