MANTRA – Take It! (A-Disc, 1980)

Instrumental
International relevance: *

Latecomers to the A-Disc roster, Mantra's debut album showed more than a few commercial leanings towards the radio friendly pop rock of the day as well as dehydrated funk fusion and disco. One track, ”Swing Your Thing” suspiciously shares a few features with Toto's ”Hold The Line” which is revealing enough. ”I Sold My Soul (To Rock 'n' Roll?)” is – with a question mark or without it – one of the worst over-used song titles ever. It doesn't matter that it's probably used here as a tongue-in-cheek hint at the slight hard rock charasteristics sneaking into what's basically a mediocre jazz fusion track. Guitarist, songwriter and arranger Henrik Janson obviously had a taste for American FM hard rock, as his playing is soaked with it. The album is entirely instrumental, but whether that's for the better or for the worse is impossible to say since ”Take It” sucks harder than an anabolic Hoover anyway.

Mantra had a few 45s out and released their second album ”Mantraction” on the Hill label in 1982 before Janson turned to a prolific career as a studio guitarist. He was also a member of Mikael Ramel's backing band Harru Lust in the early 80s (appearing on ”Strömavbrott” from 1982 and ”Bra sak” from 1984), and Ramel also wrote the lyrics for one of Mantra's songs on ”Mantraction”.

Balladtime

VARIOUS ARTISTS – Glimtar II (A Disc, 1978)

Featured artists: Jazzgrupp & stråkkvartett / Carlstad Jazzquintet / Panik / Mantra / Nannie Porres / Ingegerd Nordell / Gothenburg City Pipe Band / Bo Thalén / Sibinović / Eva Waldemarsson / Slumpens Skördar / Göteborgs Visgrupp
Instrumental, Swedish vocals, English vocals
International relevance: **

Similar in style and disposition to volume 1 except that this is a single disc release as opposed to the preceeding double LP. Some artists are featured on both such as Ingegerd Nordell, noted jazz vocalist Nannie Porres, Mantra, and Göteborgs Visgrupp (of ”Riv alla stängsel” fame). ”Glimtar II” suffers from the same inconsistency as the first volume, with a hodge-podge of political progg, smooth jazz, folk and even a pipe band. Among the better efforts is Panik's lone track ”Ingenting” featuring some melodic fuzz guitar, althought it would have been more interesting hadn't it been an instrumental – in this state it sounds like a backing track rather than a finished track. Mantra's contribution is another stale fusion number, this time with a surprisingly spacey synth (or moog) driven middle section; "Two Cats in My Fantasy" might be mildly interesting to seriously devoted fusion heads.

The album was recorded in 1977 but not released until the following year.

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