Showing posts with label O. Show all posts
Showing posts with label O. Show all posts

Thursday, July 31, 2025

OPPOSITE CORNER / PALLE DANIELSSON -6- – Club Jazz 5 (SR, 1971)

 
 Instrumental
International relevance: ***

The ”Club Jazz” series was a series of nine volumes of jazz recordings made for Swedish Radio between 1970 and 1974, a bit like a jazz equivalent of the three ”Tonkraft” double LPs released in the early 80s. The albums were usually split between two artists, one per side, and not all couplings made sense. There's for instance one album with Arbete & Fritid on one side and trad jazzers Kustbandet on the other. ”Club Jazz 5” has a better match, with a very early Opposite Corner recording and one by a rare sixpiece line-up led by bassist Palle Danielsson.

This session with Opposite Corner is five years earlier than their proper debut album ”Jazz i Sverige '76” and a bit different. It's not full on free jazz wild but they let loose a bit more here than they did later on. And it's much better! The Arabic scales in opening track ”Ayazin” is very tasteful, and Gunnar Lindgren delivers some fine tenor sax soloing in ”Blacklouti Strikes Back”. Last track from them is ”Tibetanskt urindop” and is probably as close Opposite Corner ever got to Arbete & Fritid. A very good session, well worth hearing even if you're not into their later work.

Turn the record over and you find four tracks from Palle Danielsson's band. This is where it gets really interesting. Featured here is an all star cast of Lennart Åberg, Bobo Stenson, Jon Christensen, Bengt Berger and Roland Keijser along with Danielsson himself! A highly vivid session with Berger in particular going bonkers on the drums – it's among the most ferocious drumming I've heard from him, and it's interesting to note that this was recorded in the same year as Fickteatern's ”Allt växer till det hejdas” which also has some mad Berger playing. But the ensemble effort is great all through, and I really wish there were more recordings from this particular lot.

So with two unique and splendid sessions, this is one for the ages.

Full album

Sunday, July 20, 2025

OBADJA – Testa (Obadja, 1977)

  Swedish vocals
International relevance: ***

I suppose a lot of people had never heard about Obadja until Subliminal Sounds included them on the ”Frälst!” compilation with the hard rocking title track from their sole album, a private pressing from 1977. But it's the least representative one. ”Testa” consists of sometimes lightly funky but mostly moody, reflective songs with a slight, very pleasing basement feel. The lyrics are all about Jesus, and some of them are naive and in the case of ”Räddningsfirman” outright cringy, but there's a sincerity to them that in fact is rather endearing. Songwriter and piano player Torbjörn Westberg has a keen melodic sense, an his voice is a bit similar to Pugh Rogefeldt's at times with a disarming directness to it. The only bad track here is guitarist Lars Ohlsson's ”Våldets spiral”. And you can't say he's a perfect guitarist, sometimes stumbling on his otherwise edgy solos, but that actually adds to the earnestness and deepens the impact of the predominantly piano driven songs (both acoustic and electric piano are used).

With the exception of ”Våldets spiral”, the songs are so great it's hard to pick a facourite. But I'm particularly fond of album opener ”Jobbig tid” with a hypnotic, descending scale (and included as a digital bonus track on ”Frälst!”).

I haven't heard every Christian album ever released in Sweden (the very thought of doing it is horrifying), but if there's any one better than this, I'd be more than happy to hear it. ”Testa” is quite simply a wonderful effort and should be a no-brainer for a proper reissue. 

Jobbig tid
Letar du efter räddning
Testa
Använd kolat 
Räddningsfirman

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

THE OUTSIDERS – Inside Outsiders (Mellotronen, 2024; rec. 1965-69)

  
English vocals, instrumental
International relevance: **

The Outsiders only had three 45s released in 1967 and 1968, all an different labels, but they were enough to cement their lasting reputation of being one of Sweden's loudest and rowdiest mod/garage/freakbeat bands. True they were, at their best, a combo that would give most other outfits a run for their money, and that includes Namelosers and Lea Riders Group. No wonder The Outsiders became one of Jimi Hendrix's favourite bands.

Given their slim output, it wasn't obvious they'd be honoured with a a full length compilation, but the guys at Mellotronen managed to dig up a number of previously unreleased recordings for the 2024 limited edition archival collection ”Inside Outsiders”. It is short though, not even a full 30 minutes, and only about half of it is relevant to this blog. I've decided to present it in its entirety anyway.

The core of the album is obviously the three singles ”Don't Fight It/From Four Until Late”, ”So You're My Sister's Boyfriend/Kinda Dead” and ”On My Magic Carpet/Inside Of Me”. ”Don't Fight It” is an OK mod groover with nods to The Small Faces and their peers, while ”From Four Until Late” sounds more like a silly leftover from the beat era and definitely old hat in 1967, even by Swedish standards. ”So You're My Sister's Boyfriend” follows along those lines, a real ”meh!” in The Outsiders' minimal catalogue. However, this stupid vaguely music hall inspired dud is balanced against their first true victory on disc, the flipside ”Kinda Dead”. It shows that Hendrix's love for the band was mutual – ”Kinda Dead” falls somewhere between ”Hey Joe”, ”Foxy Lady” and ”The Wind Cries Mary”. It's in moderate tempo with a distinct bass line, backing vocals hovering like ghosts in the background, and a confidently sneering guitar solo.

But it's the third and final 45 that is the prime proof of The Outsiders' potential. Both ”On My Magic Carpet” and ”Inside Of Me” rank with the best UK freakbeat singles of the era. Two true classics that showed such great promise for the future. Had The Outsiders only kept going instead of calling it quits in 1969, they'd easily had beaten Mecki Mark Men in their own game.

A trip to London meant gigs at The Marquee and The Speakeasy, but a promised contract with Mercury Records that would have led to a Brazilian tour fell through when bassist Sten ”Plutten” Larsson didn't want to go. When lead vocalist Thomas Hermelin then left the band, British singer Roye Albrighton joined instead, and with some further line-up changes, the band kept going for a little while before eventually breaking up entirely in 1969. (Albrighton later joined fellow exile Brits in German band Nektar.)

”Son Of A Gun”, recorded live in early 1969, opens ”Inside Outsiders” and shows just how far the band had gotten from their humble beginnings in 1965. A heavy, guitar driven progressive blues track clocking in on almost five and a half minutes, it's very different to the three home recordings from 1965 also featured here, presenting The Outsiders as a rather shaky instrumental surf rock combo. ”The Cruel Sea”, ”Pipeline” and ”Foot Tapper” are interesting to hear as a comparison, but they certainly drag the album down. Together with the short total playing time, they suggest that maybe there wasn't too much in the vaults to choose from.

The remaining two 1966 studio recordings are closer to the 'real' Outsiders. ”Dancing In The Streets” is a passable Motown tribute, while ”Milk Cow Blues” is a youthfully revved-up cover of The Kinks' cover of said song. Not great but still more convincing than what many other Swedish beat bands produced around the same time.

As you can tell, ”Inside Outsiders” doesn't work as a cohesive album. (The closing interview snippet with Noel Redding/Jimi Hendrix may be only 11 seconds long, but is still an unnessary addition only adding to the scattered feel.) It's an overview of a band in constant search of a style they found only shortly before they gave up. The real shame is they never got a proper album together in 1968/69, but chances are almost zero there are any more studio recordings left unreleased after Mellotronen's trawl through the surviving tapes. Unless a miracle happens, like someone finding a good or at least decent quality tape of a full late period gig, this is what we have and this is what we'll get. And given the shocking collectors prices for the original singles, it's also the only way to get the three really good Outsiders tracks to an affordable sum.

Full album playlist

Saturday, August 17, 2024

OKAY TEMIZ TRIO – Turkish Folk Jazz (Sonet, 1975) / ORIENTAL WIND – Zikir (Sun, 1979) ORIENTAL WIND – Live In Bremen (JARO, 1982) / OKAY TEMIZ'S ORIENTAL WIND – Live At Montreux Jazz Festival 1982 (Caz Plak, 2022)

Okay Temiz's albums are sprinkled all over this blog, but this post fills in the gaps in his discography up to 1982. It's a rather voluminous body of work, and if you count the albums with him only as a sideman, it becomes unfathomable. But I always take a closer look on an album with his name on it. His name is a stamp of approval. If he's there, it can't be all that bad.


OKAY TEMIZ TRIO – Turkish Folk Jazz (Sonet, 1975)
Instrumental
International relevance: ***

What could possibly go wrong with a title like that? Nothing, and nothing does either. It's recorded as a trio with Swedish jazz legend Björn Alke on bass and Temiz's fellow countryman Saffet Gündeger on clarinet (plus multiple arrangements signed Maffy Falay although he doesn't appear on the album in person). Temiz's Turkish roots have an even stronger emphasis here than on several of his other albums, and the melodies and harmonies get to fly high and free within the smaller trio format. It also means there's more room for Temiz's drumming, and he's really going for it here. He plays in all directions at once, wide and deep, high and low, and right at you. Truly musical drumming, and Gündeger finds his way around the drummer's thunderous tumble. He blows his instrument so hard as if his life depended on it, making wild runs like the clarinet's Coltrane. Even Björn Alke, anything but a bass bungler, gets overshadowed by the Turkish typhoon of sound. It's as if he knows he better stay out of the way and keep the pulse going elaborately but without trying to show off. A one hundred percent stunning album.


ORIENTAL WIND – Zikir
(Sun, 1979)
Instrumental
International relevance: ***

The release history of ”Zikir” is a bit complicated and I'm not going to get all tangled up in trying to explain which release is which and what songs are on which edition, as the CD reissue on Ada Müzik sets everything straight in terms of songs included. The picture above shows the album cover used for most early European releases.

This is a very different beast to ”Turkish Folk Jazz”. With more musicians involved, the arrangements are more rigid. There are still room for improvisation of course, but there's nothing here that can match the fury of ”Turkish Folk Jazz”. There's also something about the sound that breathes jazz fusion air, a sort of smoothness that I think is too much out of place for this music. I can just imagine what a smaller band and a more sympathetic production would have done to the outcome. Still there are entertaining moments, such as the wacky ”Kabak Tatlısı” which sounds as if they played a jew's harp through a wah-wah and then added drunken ducks on top of it. But as a whole, ”Zikir” stands as one of the weaker Temiz efforts.


ORIENTAL WIND – Live In Bremen
(JARO, 1982)
Instrumental
International relevance: ***

This 1981 recording from the Packhaus Theater in Bremen opens with ”Batum”, a throwback to Temiz's Sevda days although Lelle Kullgrens electric guitar gives it a very different vibe. I don't like his playing at all. But to be honest, I don't think Oriental Wind had a good evening back then in late October 1981. The music sounds strained (very unusual for a Temiz album!) and tense in a bad way. It's almost as if there was something worrying them, as is they had something else on their mind and tried to make up for the missing spark with force. Some moments here are better than others, but I miss the natural flow and telepathy between the musicians most of the time. And flow and telepathy are crucial for this music to work.


OKAY TEMIZ'S ORIENTAL WIND – Live At Montreux Jazz Festival 1982
(Caz Plak, 2022)
Instrumental
International relevance: ***

Ah, now we're talking! Forty minutes of top range Turk jazz action! Still guitar in the mix, but Lelle Kullgren is out and Stefan Osterberg is in and he's much more responsive to the moment, firing off some almost Terje Rypdal-like salvos that hit exactly where they should, But everybody's on the same page here, effortlessly striving in the same direction, thinking with one unified mind. This Montreux show, left in the vaults for a baffling forty years, is the exact opposite of the stifled Bremen date. It's all about the collective efforts, but every musician needs to be mentioned by name as they all play on their absolut top. Lennart Åberg moves like a panther in his death defying guerilla sax solos. Palle Danielsson is freaking insane on the bass, playing stuff that I thought was humanly impossible. He's almost like an orchestra in itself! Bobo Stenson's piano and keyboards might seem a bit tame in comparison, but although he fires away some dazzling keyboard runs, his main role is being the glue that keeps it all together, filling out whatever musical spaces need to be filled The ensemble play is out of this world, it's more than telepathy – they're tight as siamese quintuplets. No need to hold it back: Of every album I've written about here – and we're talking thousands of albums – this album is among the very, very, very best.

Turkish Folk Jazz full album
Zikir full album playlist (CD version)
Live In Bremen full album playlist
Live At Montreux full album playlist
(Bandcamp)

Sunday, January 14, 2024

ONNA TAAS BAND – Allo' (Bellatrix, 1980)


Swedish vocals, English vocals
International relevance: **

Ronny Carlsson was a well-kept secret to most but hailed as a hero and a legend by many having heard his music. He first made his mark with the band Rockamöllan in the late 70s, and after their demise, he started Onna Taas Band before launching a long solo career. He was in possession of one of the gruffest voices ever heard on a Swedish album, strangely warbly and grainy like a gravel road. Singing in his native Southern dialect (similar to Peps Persson's) only added to the air of world-weariness. He sounded as if he had seen it all, been burnt by it all and finally rejected it all. In his own words from the track ”I ett rum någonstans på stan”, translated here for international understanding: ”It's not hard to break a lonely man”. His voice was of the kind that comes back to haunt you when you switch off the light at night.

Needless to say, a voice like that will dominate any album it appears on. If you take the music on Onna Taas Band's debut album, it's not that dark. There are hints at reggae, cajun music, pretty straigh-ahead rock, John Holm influenced balladry, blues, even faint dashes of post punk (it was, after all, 1980)... But once Carlsson's voice enters the mix, the mood changes in an instant and everything becomes something else, something more, and something decidedly darker. There's so much pain at work here it's impossible to turn away from it. At its best, this is every bit as gripping as John Holm's depictions of a reality cracking slowly but irreversibly. And the thing is, even if you don't understand Carlsson's poetic words, you still sense their exact meaning. Ronny Carlsson didn't just sing, he WAS his lyrics, they're inseperable and it's impossible to not understand.

Despite the stylistic diversity, nothing here seems out of place. Even the highly Ronny Åström inspired ”Säporerad cirkus” slips in nicely between the mild Dylan funk of ”Ord som blev över” and the brooding folk of ”Den välkände soldaten”. On any other album, ”Säporerad cirkus” would be the track to skip, but not here. It has its place.

This is just a deeply human album. Like humans it might scare you with what it has to say or it might comfort you with its honesty and intimacy. (Like Swedish music journalist Bengt Eriksson said about Carlsson: he sang between pain and comfort.) But most of all, it's just a brilliant album.

Carlsson made several more albums under his own name up until 2013, the last one consisting of recordings made in the years before its release. One more was in the making, but he died in 2014 before it was finished, at the age of 62 and marked by a hard life. A life that came through unfiltered in his voice.

I ett rum någonstans på stan

Thursday, October 6, 2022

INGEMAR OLSSON MED FLERA – I alla fall (Polydor, 1973)


Swedish vocals
International relevance: *

Ingemar Olsson has already appeared on this blog once, with his 1970 debut album ”Livs levande”. This is Olsson's third album, and inbetween the two albums he had acquired a higher degree of self-confidence. ”I alla fall” is basically a Christian singer/songwriter album with upfront rock and pop aspirations, but it has nevertheless a few progg ties which I think make it worth mentioning. Tomas Ernvik collaborator Agneta Gilstig appears on backing vocals on most of the tracks, and guitarist Björn Linder is known from albums by Sam Ellison, Blues Annika, Runeson and Ola Magnell to name but a few. Also, two of the album's three cover choices are fairly stirring, namely ”Kom om du vill” which is an energetic Swedish take on Bob Dylan's ”Quinn the Eskimo” and a rowdy and similarly Swedish version of Joni Mitchell's ”Woodstock”.

Beware of later re-recordings of the songs!

Tänker man efter

Sunday, June 12, 2022

INGEMAR OLSSON – Livs levande (Teamton, 1970)

Swedish vocals, English vocals
  International relevance: *

Ingemar Olsson is a very prolific and still active artist, and one of the better mainstream singer/songwriters to come out of the Swedish Xian movement in the 70s. ”Livs levande” was his debut and sports a slew of studio pros including Janne Schaffer, jazz flautist Tommy Koverhult and drummer Ola Brunkert. Claes af Geijerstam provides percussion and backing vocals, and also produced the album which explains why ”Livs levande” shares some characteristics with Geijerstam's own 1970 solo debut "Out Of My Hair".

The songs are split between English and Swedish tracks with some fairly witty lyrics. Not all of them are good with the country parody ”Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley” being the worst, and the Simon & Garfunkel cover ”Mrs. Robinson” feeling very redundant 40+ years later. But there are some nice moments here, such as ”Somebody's Knocking On My Door”, a is mellow and catchy post-60's pop song, and the pleasantly breezy ”En typisk medmänniska” with a swirling Leslie guitar emphasizing the light feel. The entire album's a lighthearted and good-natured effort, retaining much of the hopeful air of the 60's.

Musically and generally speaking, it may not be the classic some claim it to be, but you have to acknowledge it for being a pioneering work being one of the first albums, if not the first, to blend Xian concerns with a real mainstream appeal. Also, coming only one year behind Pugh Rogefeldt's ”Ja dä ä dä”, it's one of the earliest proper pop albums to feature Swedish lyrics.

In 2019, Olsson overdubbed new Swedish vocals to the originally English speaking tracks, and while it might have looked like a good idea at first given that Olsson's English pronounciation wouldn't quite get the Queen's approval, the update sounds like any attempt of that kind, with the young Olsson and the mature Olsson anachronistically trading vocals. If you want the album, make sure to get the original vinyl version or the original CD release from 2005 ('wrong' version has brighter sleeve colours so it's easy to distinguish from the old CD).

Full album playlist

Thursday, December 20, 2018

ORIENTAL WIND – Live In Der Balver Höhle (JG-Records, 1978)

Instrumental
International relevance: ***

A document of Oriental Wind's powerful performance at the fifth annual jazz festival held at the Balver Höhle in Balve, Germany in June 1978. The impact is only lessened by a somewhat muddy sound, but if you can listen beyond the aural fidelity, you're in for a fine treat. All material is based on Turkish traditional music arranged by band leader Okay Temiz, but the quintet (also comprising Oriental Wind regulars Lennart Åberg on saxes and Bobo Stensson on piano) have a go at it with an explosive Coltrane-like fervour. The ensemble playing is on top level, with the five performers working up a transcendental frenzy, culminating at the end of ”Dere Geliyor Dere”. Haci Tekbilek's baglama (a Turkish lute of the saz family) is an excellent addition, adding a U.S. Kaleidoscope touch to parts of ”Fidayda”. That all tracks were originally released on their brilliant studio debut doesn't make "Live at the Balver Höhle" redundant at all. The live versions are a very good complement to the studio incarnations, although they would have benefitted from a better recording.
 

Sunday, September 2, 2018

OLLE BÄVER – Castor fiber (Amigo, 1978)

Instrumental
International relevance: ***
 
High calibre free/avant jazz from Gothenburg's vital 70's scene, with Susanna Lindeborg (Mwendo Dawa, Salamander) on piano. But ”Castor fiber” has powerful and nervy perfomances from everyone involved, which means Bo Andersson (sax, clarinet), Jan Amnehäll (sax, flute), Ingemar Landén, (drums), Per-Anders Nilsson (baritone saxophone) Kjell Thorbjörnson (bass), with guests Torulf Berg (cornet), Anders Bodebeck (trombone), and Harald Stenström (tuba). Dynamic and tense, there's anothing airy-fairy about this; still it sometimes gets the dreadful 'spiritual jazz' tag attached to it which is dead wrong – spirited is the correct word.

Olle Bäver is also represented on various artists comp "LIM – Levande musik från Göteborg". They later turned into acclaimed free jazz outfit Pow Wow that released a couple of discs on the Footprints label in 00's.

Full album

Monday, July 16, 2018

OPUS III & FRIENDS – Opus III & Friends (Sonet, 1970)

English vocals
International relevance: ***

An album known as much for its rarity value as its musical qualities. Released in 1970, it's an early example of guitarist Jan Schaffer performing with flute player Björn J:son Lindh on record, standing as Schaffer's first proper album.

The date suggests a transitional work between pop, psych and prog, and that observation is close to the truth. Fans of the earliest, endearingt progg years will be delighted. The songs are well crafted and melodic, sometimes with jazzy touches. Most of them stand up well, including the and the softly moving instrumental ”General Mojo's Well Laid Plan”. The musicians' interplay builds on harmony and responsiveness and not ego trips. Which is not to say they never rock out; ”Juice of Joy” and to greater effect ”Natural Thinking Boy” let it loose enough.

Perhaps not a 100% impeccable album but nevertheless a very good one, with the enjoyment further aided by a warm sounding production. Well worth getting, especially if you can lay your hands on the Record Store Day reissue. 

Full album playlist

Thursday, October 5, 2017

OCCIDENT – Occident (Zamir, 1981)

Swedish vocals, instrumental
International relevance: **

A later date private pressing, released with an insert, in supposedly only a couple of hundred copies. Often categorized as fusion, the eight tracks are in fact very different in style. Mostly instrumental, it features a couple of spoken passages in Swedish, female vocals in English on ”Life/Liv”, and wordless female vocals on the easy, laidback ”Whale Song” (that sounds just like the album cover looks). There's a light afro influence on ”Flingan” and ”Slag”, the latter assumably inspired by Talking Heads' ”Remain in Light” released the previous year. ”Trofast” in turn sounds like a cross between The Band's ”The Weight” and Jimi Hendrix's ”Angel”.

The album has a few pleasant moments and being well played it might be of passing interest to funk and jazz fusion fans, but it's also a rather non-descript affair, thus failing to make a lasting impression. Copies are rare but usually in the €50-60 range.

Monday, October 2, 2017

ARBETETS SÖNER & DÖTTRAR - Arbetets Söner & Döttrar (Oktober, 1972) // OPPONER - Gårdslåtar (Opponer, 1974) // LÖPANDE BANDET - Nån gång måste man landa... (MNW, 1975)

 ARBETETS SÖNER & DÖTTRAR – Arbetets Söner & Döttrar (Oktober, 1972)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: *

Plenty of people were affiliated with Arbetets Söner & Döttrar at one point or another, including the omnipresent Kjell Westling (Blå Tåget, Arbete & Fritid, Låt & Trall, Spjärnsvallet, Vargavinter and many more) and Greg FitzPatrick (Atlantic Ocean, Handgjort, Tillsammans, Samla Mammas Manna etc), and Bosse Hansson which may or may not be the Bo Hansson of ”Sagan om ringen” fame. This no doubt makes Arbetets Söner & Döttrar look interesting, but don't be fooled by the names – the label on their self-titled album is a lot more informative as to how the music actually sounds. Like all albums released by Oktober (run by SKP, The Communist Party of Sweden), it's standard fare political pamphlet progg through and through, with a few folk folk influences and even fewer rock influences. Although fringe Stalinists Knutna Nävar's political stance is less than appetizing, they made a much better point musically speaking with ”De svarta listornas folk” than what Arbetets Söner & Döttrar were ever capable of. ”Arbetets Söner & Döttrar” has very few – if any – musical merits.

Arbetets Söner & Döttrar also appeared on Oktober's 1972 compilation album ”Upp trälar” along with Röda Stjärnan and Västra Söders Sånggrupp before splitting into two factions releasing one album each, Löpande Bandet och Opponer. The latter beat the former to the punch, having their self-released ”Gårdslåtar” out a year before Löpande Bandet wooed MNW into releasing ”Nån gång måste man landa” in 1975.

OPPONER – Gårdslåtar
(Opponer, 1974)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: **

Opponer continued the slightly folksier style suggested by Arbetets Söner & Döttrar, but adding a little bit of rock to the mix. ”Lasse Liten och spindeln” sports some prominent psych collector friendly guitars, as does medley ”Jig-A-Reel”, combining two traditional Irish tunes, ”Whelan's Jig” and ”Drowsy Maggie”. However, the folk influence is mainly of the Swedish kind, as evident in ”Trall efter Ylva”, ”Rop”, ”Kays gånglåt” and even the diffusely psychedelic ”Det kan väl hända”. Despite such mildly pleasant folk moves, it's tracks like the inferior ”Bortgjord”, ”Hjältarnas uttåg” and ”Du måste nog bestämma dig” that define the album, leaving behind an aftertaste of communal political brainwashing to add to the semi-religious vibe marring several of the tracks. Regardless, Opponer was a popular live act among the politically like-minded, and ”Gårdslåtar” is still sought after by some, but make no mistake: it's not a great album – at best decent but forgettable, at worst something you wish you could forget. However, it's way better than Löpande Bandet's album...

LÖPANDE BANDET – Nån gång måste man landa... (MNW, 1975)
Swedish vocals
International relevance: **

”Nån gång måste man landa...” is a downright horrendous album of the most moronic pseudo-heavy blues rock imaginable. If the music won't kill you, Lotta Sandberg surely will. She's one of worst ”singers” I've ever heard on a progg album – or on any album for that matter. A former opera singer with obvious Janis Joplin delusions, you wouldn't even want to torture your enemies with her bleating caterwaul. Thankfully, Löpande Bandet split up about a year after their cat killer jamboree of an album was released, setting guitarist Rolf Wikström off to a long and lucrative solo career.